לָהֵן
but
‘but’ is one of 2 main senses 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
- Conjunction
- A joining word (e.g. “and,” “but”) linking words or clauses.
Every verse where H3861 appears in the Book of Daniel — 7 distinct verses. 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.
Daniel
- Daniel 2:11 לָהֵ֣ן conj It is a rare thing that the king requires, and there is no other who can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.
- Daniel 2:30 לָהֵ֗ן conj But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but to the intent that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your heart.
- Daniel 3:28 לָהֵ֖ן conj Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel, and delivered his servants who trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and have yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.
- Daniel 4:27 לָהֵ֣ן conj Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you, and break off your sins by righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if there may be a lengthening of your tranquillity.
- Daniel 6:5 לָהֵ֕ן conj Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.
- Daniel 6:7 לָהֵן֙ conj All the presidents of the kingdom, the deputies and the satraps, the counselors and the governors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a strong interdict, that whoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of you, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.
- Daniel 6:12 לָהֵן֙ conj Then they came near, and spoke before the king concerning the king's interdict: Haven't you signed an interdict, that every man who shall make petition to any god or man within thirty days, save to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn't alter.
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.
“but” is the headline sense of the Hebrew conjunction להן (lâhên). It clusters heavily in Daniel, which alone accounts for 88% of its uses. With 8 verses in 2 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Ezra 5:12. Catalogued under 2 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. See the sense tree, 8-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3861 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 8 occurrences in the concordance →
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 8 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 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).
- King James Version: Except 3×, But 2×, Save 2×
- American Standard Version: Except 3×, But 2×, Save 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: But 2×, Except 2×, Except you 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Except 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3861 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3861 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3861 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3861 across 8 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 BDB
The 2 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- therefore
- except, but
Word origin
conj. on this account, therefore, Ru 1:13(×2) (either from לְ and הֵן (v. sub הֵ֫מָּה); or the Aramaic לָהֵן Dn 2:6, 9; 4:24: see the Aramaic Lex.)
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from להן (lâhên) (H3860) — therefore.
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.
הוּא ²
- , ch. same. Targ. Ex. I, 16; a. v. fr.—היא הדא, v. דָּא.—Y. Shebi. VII, 37ᶜ top בהוא אתר (R. S. to Shebi. VII, 3 בההוא אתרא) in the same place.—כל דהו whatsoever, v. preced. Arakh. 2ᵃ נפשות כל דהו human beings of any nature, v. כָּל.—Y. Kil. VI, 31ᵇ top כהיא דאמר וכ׳ (in Babli כי הא) as (that which) R. … said.—Pl. הֵן (perhaps only in Hebr. phrases); הִינוּן, הִינִין. Targ. Y. Ex. I, 10; Ib. 19 (O. אינ׳); a. fr.—With prefix ה: הַהוּא, הַהִיא. Targ. Y. Ex. XXI, 20; a. fr.—In Talmud frequ. used to introduce a case. Pes. 3ᵇ ה׳ ארמאה ד־ it occurred that a gentile &c. Keth. 78ᵇ ה׳ איתתא ד־ the case came up of a woman that &c.; a. v. fr.—ה׳ גברא, ה׳ איתתא frequ. euphemistically for myself, thyself (to avoid ominous speech or curse). Y. Maas. Sh. IV, 55ᵇ bot. אביו דה׳ ג׳ thy father. Ib.ᶜ top חמית ה׳ א׳ I saw; בעלה דה׳ א׳ thy husband; a. v. fr.—With prefix ד־: דהוא, דהיא, contr. דּוּ, דִּי, v. דְּ־ a. דּוּ.—With prefixed prep. בְּהוֹן, בּוֹן, לְהוֹן, לוֹן.
הֵן
- they, pl. of הוּא, הִיא.
הֵן ²
- (b. h. הֵן)
- 1. here is, behold. הִינָּם, הִינָּן behold, they are. Ned. V, 6 (48ᵃ) והי׳ לפניך אלא וכ׳ Bab. ed. (Mish. ואינן; Y. ed. והן בפניך עד) and behold they are before thee (thine), but only in order that my father &c.
- 2. (introducing a question or exclamation) how?, indeed! Y. Shek. I, 45ᵈ bot. הן נקרא ולא וכ׳ can we, indeed, read this and not feel ashamed? (Bab. ed. הניקרא, marginal correct. Ms. M. הן נק׳).
- 3. if. Dan. II, 5, sq.; a. fr.—הן—הן whether—or. Ezra VII, 26.—B. Bath. VII, 2 הן חסר הן יתר whether it be less (than a Beth Kor) or more. Ib. 3; a. e. e.g. Daniel 2:5
- 4. yes (cmp. אִין I). B. Mets. 49ᵃ, v. הִין II Mekh. Yithro s. 4 answer על לאו לאו ועל הן הן no to a prohibition and yes to a positive command. Ib. s. 5 ה׳ וה׳ yes, indeed; a fr.—Ned. 11ᵃ, a. fr. מכלל לאו אתה שומע הן from the negative we derive the affirmative by implication; Y. ib. I, end, 37ᵃ, a. e. ממשמע לאו וכ׳. Men. X, 3 (65ᵃ).
הָן
- 1. ה׳ ד־ he who. Targ. Prov. XIX, 1, a. fr. in Ms., ed. Lag. הֲווֹ q. v.—Pesik. Aḥaré, p. 169ᵇ, v. דְּחוּכָא; a. e.
- 2. this one, that one. Y. Meg. I, 72ᵃ היך … להן וכ׳ (Y. Succ. III, 54ᵃ top לדין), v. הֵיךְ. Y. Kil. IX, 32ᶜ top [read:] מה הן שאל להן וכ׳; Y. Keth. XII, 35ᵇ top מה הין דשאיל להון (corr. acc.) from all that this one asked that one &c.; a. fr.
- 3. what? Y. B. Mets. II, 8ᶜ לְהָן, v. אֲהָן.
- 4. where (relat.), where? Esth. R. to I, 12 [read:] הן דליסטאה מקפח וכ׳ where the robber waylays, there he is executed. Y. Snh. I, 19ᵃ top; Y. Ned. VI, 40ᵃ bot. הן דמטא מטא where he came to, he came to (and his order was obeyed). Y. Kil. IX, 32ᶜ bot. [read:] להן דאשתלחית מינסבינן to the place whither I was sent to take them; Y. Keth. XII, 35ᵇ להון דשלחית (read דאשתלחית). Gen. R. s. 78, v. בְּרָא. Y. Ber. II, 5ᶜ bot. להן ייזיל whither shall he go? Ib. II, 5ᵃ top מן הן הוא where is he from?; a. fr.—Pl. הַנְהוּ, הַנֵּי, הַנָּךְ those, these. Targ. Esth. I, 10; a. e.—Tam. 32ᵇ. B. Mets. 117ᵃ, v. הַהוּא.—Gitt. 6ᵃ הנך … דהני והני בדהנך וכ׳ those (the inhabitants of Ctesiphon) know the signatures of these (of Ardshir), but the latter do not know &c. Bets. 10ᵇ; a. v. fr.—*Fem. pl. הַנָּן. Y. Bets. V, 63ᵇ top רבנין … מפרשין לה׳ the Rabbis of Cæsarea report these (controversies) more explicitly (stating the opinion of each by name; Y. Pes. VIII, 36ᵃ top מפרשין להון).—הני מילי (abbrev. הנ"מ) these words (have been said), i.e. this is the case only &c. Ber. 21ᵃ bot. (הוה אמינא) הנ"מ יחיד ויחיד I might have thought this refers only to &c.—Ib. 15ᵃ והנ"מ לק"ש but this applies only to &c.; a. v. fr.—מנא הני מילי, v. מְנָא II.—Emphatic. הַנָּא, הַנָּה. Gen. R. s. 87 הנה טבא וכ׳ is this (slave) good? Is the omen favorable?; Yalk. ib. 145 הא טב וכ׳ (corr. acc.).
לָהֵן
- = אִלָּהֵין, but, only. Taan. 12ᵃ (quot. fr. Meg. Taan. ch. XII, ed. Meg. Taan. לכן).
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 5 distinct written forms H3861 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| לָהֵ֗ן | Conjunction | Daniel 2:30 | 2 |
| לָהֵ֣ן | Conjunction | Daniel 2:11 | 2 |
| לָהֵן֙ | Conjunction | Daniel 6:7 | 2 |
| לָהֵ֕ן | Conjunction | Daniel 6:5 | 1 |
| לָהֵ֖ן | Conjunction | Daniel 3:28 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
