לָבָן
Laban
BDB lists 3 entries for ‘Laban’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H3837 appears in the Book of Deuteronomy — 1 distinct verse. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Deuteronomy
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
לבן (Lâbân) is a Hebrew name most often rendered “Laban.” Genesis dominates its distribution — 46 of 47 verses. Spanning 47 verses in 2 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Genesis 24:29. For the data behind this summary, explore 47-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3837 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 47
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 47 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #686
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 686 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 47 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Genesis 46 verses 98%
- Deuteronomy 1 verse 2%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 47 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 47 verses · 100%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 3 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Laban 46×, Laban's 3×
- American Standard Version†: Laban 45×, Them 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Laban 41×, Laban’s 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Laban 51×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3837 across 55† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3837 across 55† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3837 across 52† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 3 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3837 across 55† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 0 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
לבן I white
לבן II m. son of Bethuel, brother of Rebekah, and father-in-law of Jacob (𝔊 Λαβαν), Gn 24
לבן III loc., connected with desert-journey of Israelites Dt 1
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
I. adj. white;—ל׳ abs. Gn 30:35 + 13 times; cstr. לְבֶן־ Gn 49:12 (cf. Ges§ 93, 2, R. 1 Kö Lgb ii, 74 BaNB 166); f. לְבָנָה Lv 13:4 + 6 times; pl. לְבָנִים Zc 1:8 + 3 times; לְבָנוֹת Gn 30:37 + 2 times;—white, of wood under bark Gn 30:37(×2) (cf. Jo 1:7); of spots on goats v 35 (all J); of manna Ex 16:31 (P); garments Ec 9:8 (sign of cheerfulness and joy); of teeth וּלְבֶן־שִׁנַּיִם מֵחָלָב Gn 49:12 (poem in J; ‖ הַכְלִילִי עֵינַיִם מִיָּ֑יִן) of Judah (on interpr. v. Di and, differently, Marc. JastrJBL xi. (1892), 128); of horses Zc 1:8; 6:3, 6 (in vision); chfly. of diseased skin or flesh on body (בַּהֶרֶת Lv 13:4, 19, 24, 25, 26, 38) Lv 13:4, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 24, 38; and of hair on such spots 13:3, 4, 10, 20, 21, 25, 26; + אֲדַמְדֶּ֫מֶת 13:19, 24, 43, cf. v 42; + כֵּהָה v 39 (all P).
II. n.pr.m. son of Bethuel, brother of Rebekah, and father-in-law of Jacob (𝔊 Λαβαν), Gn 24:29(×2), 50; 27:43; 28:2, 5 + 17 times J (Gn 29, 30, 31, 32); 29:15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 26 + 18 times E (Gn 31, 32, ל׳ הָאֲרַמִּי 31:24); 25:20 (ל׳ הָאֲרַמִּי) 28:5 (id.), also 28:2; 29:24, 29; 46:18, 25 (all P).
III. n.pr.loc., connected with desert-journey of Israelites Dt 1:1, 𝔊 Λοβον; poss. = לִבְנָה 2, q.v.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from לבן (lâbân) (H3836) — white.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
בֵּן
- , constr. בֶּן (b. h.; בנה) offspring, son, child. שבוע הב׳ the male child’s week, a disguise for circumcision day, adopted during the Hadrianic persecutions. Snh. 32ᵇ; Y. Keth. I, 25ᶜ; a. e.—ישוע הב׳ a disguise for פִּדְיוֹן הבן. B. Kam. 80ᵃ.—… בְּנוֹ של the son of, v. שֶׁל. בְּנָן של קדושים descendant of holy men. Ab. Zar. 50ᵃ; a. e.—Pl. בָּנִים, constr. בְּנֵי. Ab. III, 14 ב׳ למקום chosen children of God. Gen. R. s. 82 בָּנֶיהָ של תורה children (followers) of the Law.—Trnsf. belonging to, fit for &c.; e.g. בני גולה those belonging to the colony of exiles, Babylonians &c.; בני גליל Galileans; בני אכילה things fit to be eaten &c. [For such compounds as are not self-evident, see the respective determinants.] [בני פיקרין, v. בְּנִיפיקָרִין.]
לָבַן I
- to make or pile bricks. B. Mets. X, 5 (118ᵇ) ואין לוֹבְנִין לבנים but you are not permitted to pile up bricks (on the public road). Ib. גובלין טיט … אבל לא לובנין Ms. M. (v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note; ed. לבנים; Y. ed. ללבינים) you may knead clay on the public road (for immediate use), but you are not permitted to form bricks; (Y. ed.: but not for making bricks). Tosef. Kel. B. Kam. III, 7; ib. Ohol. XVII, 7.
לָבַן II
- (cmp. לָבָה) to glisten.
- 1. to polish, brighten; to finish. Sabb. VII, 2 הגוזז … והמְלַבְּנוֹ he who clips wool and he who cleanses it (by washing, removing clods &c.); Y. ib. 10ᶜ top המלבנו ההן דמגפר וכ׳ under m’labben of the Mishnah is implied (any preparation for improving raw material, e. g.) he who pitches wood &c., v. אֶלִּיקָה. Ib. המיינטון חייב משום מְלַבֵּן he who cleanses amiant (v. אַמְיַינְטוֹן) comes under the law forbidding polishing (on the Sabbath). Tosef. Ber. VII (VI), 2; Ber. 58ᵃ; Y. ib. IX, 13ᶜ top גזז ול׳ וכ׳ he (Adam) clipped (wool) and cleansed &c. Ab. Zar. V, 12 את שדרכו … לְלַבֵּן באור יְלַבֵּן וכ׳ such utensils as are ordinarily cleansed by being put in the fire (metal spits &c.) he must cleanse by fire.—Gen. R. s. 70 (play on לָבָן, Gen. XXIX, 5) do you know Him שהוא עתיד ללַבֵּן וכ׳ who will cleanse your sins to make them appear like snow (Is. I, 18)?; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְלוּבָּן finished, polished, refined. Nidd. 31ᵃ (of an embryo) מל׳ ומזורז well-formed and of strong vitality; Snh. 70ᵇ; Num. R. s. 10.—Ib. מל׳ ברשע finished (refined) in wickedness, v. אפדכסיס; Gen. R. s. 60; Ruth R. to II, 1; Yalk. Gen. 109.—Esp. a) to glaze tiles; to heat tiles. Bets. IV, 7 (33ᵃ) אין מְלַבְּנִין את וכ׳ you must not heat (new) tiles (on Holy Days) for roasting on them; Y. ib. IV, end, 62ᵈ מאן דאמר מלבנין בבדוקים he who says that you may heat tiles &c., refers to such as have been tested (to be sound under fire).—b) (of metal utensils, v. supra) to glow. Ḥull. 8ᵃ ל׳ סכין וכ׳ if one made a knife glowing hot and cut with it; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְלוּבָּן, f. מְלוּבֶּנֶת. Y. Yeb. XVI, 15ᶜ bot. e.g. Genesis 29:5
- 1. to grow white, glossy, be cleansed. Ex. R. s. 23 (play on שְׁלמ̇ה̇ a. שַׂלְמָה) מה השלמה הזאת מתלכלכת וחוזרת ומִתְלַבֶּנֶת as the garment gets soiled and is cleansed again &c.; (Yalk. Cant. 982 מתכבסת). Ib.; Cant. R. to I, 6 נ׳ גופו his tanned skin became white again, v. כִּרְכֵּם.
- 2. to be glowed, heated. Sabb. 27ᵇ והאונין … משיִתְלַבְּנוּ bundles of flax are considered finished after they are baked; Sifra Thazr., Neg., Par. 5, ch. XIII.
- 1. to grow white. Neg. I, 6 היו … והִלְבִּינוּ if the hair was black and turned white. Ib. IV, 4 עיקרן … וראשן מַלְבִּין if their roots are black and their tops white. Yoma VI, 8; a. fr.
- 2. to whiten, cleanse. Cant. R. to V, 11 להַלְבִּין כנף וכ׳ to make white one wing of a raven. Yoma. 39ᵇ the Temple is called Lebanon שמַלְבִּין וכ׳ because it cleanses the sins &c.—Keth. 59ᵇ הרוצה שיַלְבִּין את בתו he who desires to make his daughter white-complexioned (handsome); a. e.—Transf. (with פנים) to put to shame, expose. Ab. III, 11 המַלְבִּין פני וכ׳ he who exposes his fellowman to shame in public. B. Mets. 59ᵃ נוח לו לאדם שיפיל … ואל יַלְבִּין וכ׳ man should rather have himself thrown into a furnace than put his neighbor to shame. Yalk. Deut. 938 אני מלבין פניהם I should put them to shame; (Pirké d’R. El. ch. XLIV מגלה, v. גָּלָה). B. Mets. 58ᵇ כל המלבין … כאילו שופך דמים he who puts his neighbor to public shame is considered as if he shed blood; a. fr.—Y. Succ. V, 55ᶜ bot. (play on נ̇ב̇ל̇) שמל̇ב̇ין כמה מיני זמר it shames (excels) many a musical instrument.
לְבַן
- (denom. of לִבְנָא, cmp. אֲרִיחַ) to have a strong rest; to be well balanced. Sabb. 104ᵃ מ"ט שקר אחידא כרעיה ואמת מִלְבַּן לַבְנֵי Ms. M. why has the word שקר one single foot (in the letter ק), while the letters of אמת have a level foundation?; (ed. שיקרא אחדא כרעא קאי ואמת מְלַבַּן לִבּוּנֵיה falsehood (שקר) stands on one leg, while the foundation of truth (אמת) is level).
- to found, rest. Erub. 14ᵃ מְלַבֵּין ליה בטינא וכ׳ you may form a level rest for it by plastering, partly on this, partly on the other side, so that it will be firm.—Part. pass. מְלַבַּן, v. supra.
לָבָן I
- (b. h.) pr. n. m. Laban, son of Bethuel, freq. ל׳ הארמי L. the Aramaean. Snh. 105ᵃ. Ab. Zar. 3ᵃ יבוא ל׳ וכ׳ let L. come and give testimony for Jacob &c. Gen. R. s. 60, v. אפדכסיס. Koh. R. to II, 26; a. fr.
לָבָן II
- v. לָבַן) white; white color, white substance. Gen. R. s. 73 בן ל׳ a white child, opp. כּוּשִׁי. Men. IV, 1 התכלת … את הל׳ the absence of the blue fringe is no obstacle to using the white one &c. Bekh. 45ᵇ, v. בָּהַק. Lev. R. s. 31 אין אדם רואה מתוך הל׳ וכ׳ man does not see through the white (of the eye). Yoma 75ᵃ ל׳ כמרגלית, v. גַּד II. Ib. VII, 4, a. fr. בגדי ל׳ garments of white stuff. Ib. 1, v. אִסְטַלִּית; a. v. fr.—שְׂדֵה (ה)ל׳ a bright, shadeless field, vegetable or grain field, opp. שדה אילן orchard. Shebi. II, 1; M. Kat. I, 4ᶜ; a. fr.—Pl. לְבָנִים, לְבָנִין. Mikv. VIII, 2 (מים) ל׳ נמשכים white and cohesive matter (urin). Tosef. Sabb. I, 22 הל׳ white garments, opp. צבועין colored; a. fr.—Fem. לְבָנָה. Y. Shek. VI, 49ᵈ bot.; Cant. R. to V, 11 אש ל׳ white fire. Sifra Thazr., Neg., Par. 5, ch. XIII מה פשתים ל׳ אף צמר ל׳ as ‘linen’ means ‘of natural white color’, so does ‘wool’ &c. Gen. R. s. 73 שחורה או ל׳ is it the portrait of a black or of a white person?; a. fr.—Pl. לְבָנוֹת. Macc. 20ᵇ במלקט ל׳ וכ׳ when he plucks the gray hair from among the black. B. Kam. 60ᵇ; a. fr.
לָבָן
- 1. same. Targ. Y. Gen. XXX, 37, v. next w.—*2) = לִבְנָא, brick. Targ. Y. II, Ex. XXIV, 10 (Y. I, a. O. אבן; h. text לבנת).
לְבָן
- , white poplar. Targ. O. Gen. XXX, 37 (Y. דפרח לבן, v. פְּרַח). Targ. Hos. IV, 13.
לֹבֶן
- , v. לוֹבֶן
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 20 distinct written forms H3837 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| לָבָ֖ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 28:2 | 12 |
| לָבָן֙ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:10 | 7 |
| לָבָ֔ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:14 | 6 |
| לָבָ֜ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:13 | 4 |
| לְ/לָבָ֔ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:13 | 3 |
| לָבָ֑ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 24:29 | 3 |
| לָבָ֥ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 25:20 | 3 |
| לָבָ֗ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:19 | 2 |
| לָבָ֛ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:22 | 2 |
| לָבָ֣ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:5 | 2 |
| לָבָ֤ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 24:50 | 2 |
| בְּ/לָבָ֑ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 31:36 | 1 |
| וְ/לָבָ֛ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 31:25 | 1 |
| וְ/לָבָ֣ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 31:19 | 1 |
| וְ/לָבָ֥ן | Noun, Proper | Deuteronomy 1:1 | 1 |
| וּ/לְ/לָבָ֖ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:16 | 1 |
| לְ/לָבָ֑ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 31:31 | 1 |
| לְ/לָבָ֖ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 31:22 | 1 |
| לָבָ֧ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 24:29 | 1 |
| לָבָֽן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 30:40 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3837, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Laban). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
White. (1.) The son of Bethuel, who was the son of Nahor, Abraham's brother. He lived at Haran in Mesopotamia. His sister Rebekah was Isaac's wife (Gen. 24). Jacob, one of the sons of this marriage, fled to the house of Laban, whose daughters Leah and Rachel (ch. 29) he eventually married. (See JACOB.)
(2.) A city in the Arabian desert in the route of the Israelites (Deut. 1:1), probably identical with Libnah (Num. 33:20).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(white).
+ Son of Bethuel, brother of Rebekah and father of Leah and Rachel. (B.C. about 1860-1740.) The elder branch of the family remained at Haran, Mesopotamia, when Abraham removed to the land of Canaan, and it is there that we first meet with Laban, as taking the leading part in the betrothal of his sister Rebekah to her cousin Isaac. (Genesis 24:10,29-60; 27:43; 29:5) The next time Laban appears in the sacred narrative it is as the host of his nephew Jacob at Haran. (Genesis 29:13,14) [Jacob] Jacob married Rachel and Leah, daughters of Laban, and remained with him 20 years, B.C. 1760-1740. But Laban's dishonest and overreaching practice toward his nephew shows from what source Jacob inherited his tendency to sharp dealing. Nothing is said of Laban after Jacob left him. + One of the landmarks named in the obscure and disputed passage (1:1) The mention of Hezeroth has perhaps led to the only conjecture regarding Laban of which the writer is aware, namely, that it is identical with Libnah. (Numbers 33:20)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
white; shining; gentle; brittle
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 45 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 47 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
