לָכַד
to capture
also: take, seize fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘capture’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”). Here: ‘be captured in war’
- Hithpael
- The reflexive or reciprocal stem (the subject acts on itself).
Form
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
State
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H3920 appears in the Book of Joshua — 21 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.
Joshua
- Joshua 6:20 וַֽ/יִּלְכְּד֖וּ conj + Qal wimpf 3mp So the people shouted, and [the priests] blew the trumpets; and it happened, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.
- Joshua 7:14 יִלְכְּדֶ֨/נּוּ יִלְכְּדֶ֤/נָּה יִלְכְּדֶ֣/נּוּ Qal impf 3ms + sfx pers 3ms Qal impf 3ms + sfx pers 3fs Qal impf 3ms + sfx pers 3ms In the morning therefore you shall be brought near by your tribes: and it shall be, that the tribe which Yahweh takes shall come near by families; and the family which Yahweh shall take shall come near by households; and the household which Yahweh shall take shall come near man by man.
- Joshua 7:15 הַ/נִּלְכָּ֣ד ptcl def.art + Niphal ptcp.act ms It shall be, that he who is taken with the devoted thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he has; because he has transgressed the covenant of Yahweh, and because he has done folly in Israel.
- Joshua 7:16 וַ/יִּלָּכֵ֖ד conj + Niphal wimpf 3ms So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel near by their tribes; and the tribe of Judah was taken:
- Joshua 7:17 וַ/יִּלְכֹּ֕ד וַ/יִּלָּכֵ֖ד conj + Qal wimpf 3ms conj + Niphal wimpf 3ms and he brought near the family of Judah; and he took the family of the Zerahites: and he brought near the family of the Zerahites man by man; and Zabdi was taken:
- Joshua 7:18 וַ/יִּלָּכֵ֗ד conj + Niphal wimpf 3ms and he brought near his household man by man; and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.
- Joshua 8:19 וַֽ/יִּלְכְּד֑וּ/הָ conj + Qal wimpf 3mp + sfx pers 3fs The ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand, and entered into the city, and took it; and they hurried and set the city on fire.
- Joshua 8:21 לָכַ֤ד Qal pf 3ms When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and killed the men of Ai.
- Joshua 10:1 לָכַ֨ד Qal pf 3ms Now it happened, when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them;
- Joshua 10:28 לָכַ֨ד Qal pf 3ms Joshua took Makkedah on that day, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and the king of it: he utterly destroyed them and all the souls who were therein; he left none remaining; and he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.
- Joshua 10:32 וַֽ/יִּלְכְּדָ/הּ֙ conj + Qal wimpf 3ms + sfx pers 3fs and Yahweh delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel; and he took it on the second day, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls who were therein, according to all that he had done to Libnah.
- Joshua 10:35 וַֽ/יִּלְכְּד֜וּ/הָ conj + Qal wimpf 3mp + sfx pers 3fs and they took it on that day, and struck it with the edge of the sword; and all the souls who were therein he utterly destroyed that day, according to all that he had done to Lachish.
- Joshua 10:37 וַ/יִּלְכְּד֣וּ/הָ conj + Qal wimpf 3mp + sfx pers 3fs and they took it, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and the king of it, and all the cities of it, and all the souls who were therein; he left none remaining, according to all that he had done to Eglon; but he utterly destroyed it, and all the souls who were therein.
- Joshua 10:39 וַֽ/יִּלְכְּדָ֞/הּ conj + Qal wimpf 3ms + sfx pers 3fs and he took it, and the king of it, and all the cities of it; and they struck them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed all the souls who were therein; he left none remaining: as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir, and to the king of it; as he had done also to Libnah, and to the king of it.
- Joshua 10:42 לָכַ֥ד Qal pf 3ms All these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because Yahweh, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.
- Joshua 11:10 וַ/יִּלְכֹּ֣ד conj + Qal wimpf 3ms Joshua turned back at that time, and took Hazor, and struck the king of it with the sword: for Hazor before was the head of all those kingdoms.
- Joshua 11:12 לָכַ֧ד Qal pf 3ms All the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and he struck them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed them; as Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded.
- Joshua 11:17 לָכַ֔ד Qal pf 3ms from Mount Halak, that goes up to Seir, even to Baal Gad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon: and all their kings he took, and struck them, and put them to death.
- Joshua 15:16 וּ/לְכָדָ֑/הּ conj + Qal wpf 3ms + sfx pers 3fs Caleb said, He who strikes Kiriath Sepher, and takes it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife.
- Joshua 15:17 וַֽ/יִּלְכְּדָ֛/הּ conj + Qal wimpf 3ms + sfx pers 3fs Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife.
- Joshua 19:47 וַ/יִּלְכְּד֥וּ conj + Qal wimpf 3mp The border of the children of Dan went out beyond them; for the children of Dan went up and fought against Leshem, and took it, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and possessed it, and lived therein, and called Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their father.
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.
At its core, לכד (lâkad) means “to capture.” Its English rendering has broadened — “took” classically, “captured” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 112 verses in 22 books, it ranks among the common words of the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Numbers 21:32. Across 3 stems, its meaning turns on the binyan (Qal, Niphal). Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3920 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 →
- 112
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 112 distinct verses.
- 22 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 22 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #358
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 358 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 112 occurrences in the concordance →
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 112 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 79 verses · 71%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 26 verses · 23%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 7 verses · 6%
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: Took 27×, Was taken 12×, Take 9×
- American Standard Version: Took 21×, Was taken 11×, He took 6×
- Berean Standard Bible: Captured 25×, Was selected 8×, Captured it 7×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Captured 16×, And 15×, They captured 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3920 across 121 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 25 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 H3920 across 121 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 35 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 H3920 across 120 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 37 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 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3920 across 124 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 34 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
9 senses and sub-senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each. This entry also uses Hithpael (reflexive or reciprocal).
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 9 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.
Qal
- Pf. ל׳ Jos 8:21 +, לָכַדְתִּי 2 S 12:27 etc.; Impf. 3 ms. יִלְכּוֹד Am 3:5; וַיִּלְכֹּד Ju 8:12 +, etc.; Imv. ms. sf. לָכְדָהּ 2 S 12:28, mpl. לִכְדוּ; Inf. abs. לָכוֹד Am 3:5; cstr. sf. לְלָכְדֵנִי Je 18:22, לְלָכְדָהּ 32:24; Pt. לֹכֵד Jb 5:13 Pr 16:32;— e.g. Joshua 8:21
- 1. capture, seize (not in P) c. acc., usually a city or town, in war Ju 1:8, 12 Jos 8:21; 10:1 (JE), Dt 2:35 + 48 times (but Ju 1:18 del. as gloss Bu Kit GFM al.); land Jos 10:42 (D), Dn 11:18; water-courses (fords), Ju 3:28; 7:24(×2); 12:5; obj. men (usually princes, kings) in battle Ju 7:25; 8:12, 14 Jos 11:12, 17 (D), 2 Ch 22:9; 33:11; captives and spoils 2 S 8:4 = 1 Ch 18:4; of Saul’s seizing the kingdom (הַמְּלוּכָה), i. e. acquiring it actually by force of arms 1 S 14:47; also of Samson’s catching the foxes Ju 15:4; of a lion catching his prey Am 3:4; of a trap, snare, לָכוֹד יִלְכּוֹד 3:5. e.g. Judges 1:8
- 2. fig. of entrapping men Je 5:26 ψ 35:8, cf. Pr 5:22 Jb 5:13 and (of a pit) Je 18:22. e.g. Jeremiah 5:26
- 3. of taking by lot Jos 7:14(×3), 17 (JE; v. Niph. 3). e.g. Joshua 7:14
Niphal
- Pf. נִלְכַּד La 4:20; 3 fs. נִלְכְּדָה 1 K 16:18 +, etc.; Impf. יִלָּכֵד Is 24:18 Je 48:44; יִלָּ֫כֶד בָּהּ Ec 7:26; וַיִּלָּכֵד Jos 7:16 +, etc.; Pt. נִלְכָּד Jos 7:15;— e.g. Lamentations 4:20
- 1. be captured in war, of city 1 K 16:18 2 K 18:10 Je 38:28(×2); 48:1, 41; 50:2, 9, 24; 51:31, 41 Zc 14:2; of men Je 51:56 La 4:20 (cf. Qal 1). e.g. 1 Kings 16:18
- 2. of men, be caught, viz. in a snare or trap, only fig., usually by divine judgment Is 8:15; 24:18; 28:13 ψ 9:16; 59:13 Pr 6:2; 11:6 Je 6:11; 8:9; so of Moab Je 48:7, 44; of being ensnared by a woman Ec 7:26; of being caught by cords of distress, בְּחַבְלֵי עֹ֑נִי, Jb 36:8. e.g. Isaiah 8:15
- 3. be taken by lot Jos 7:15, 16, 17, 18 (all JE), 1 S 10:20, 21(×2); 14:41, 42 (cf. Qal 3). e.g. Joshua 7:15
Hithpael
- Impf. 3 mpl.; יִתְלַכְּדוּ וְלֹא יִתְפָּרָ֑דוּ Jb 41:9 they grasp each other, and cannot be separated, of crocodile’s scales (‖ אִישׁ בְּאָחִיהוּ יְדֻבָּ֑קוּ); פְּנֵי תְהוֹם יִתְלַכָּ֑דוּ Jb 38:30 the face of the deep compacts (of freezing; ‖ כָּאֶבֶן מַיִם יִתְחַבָּ֑אוּ; vbs. transp., plausibly, by Me Bi Siegf Bu). e.g. Job 41:9
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
vb. capture, seize, take (by lot) (Ph. לכד take out, choose (?); 𝔗 לְכַד as BH; Arabic لَكَدَ is strike, push, with the hand, etc., مِلْكَدٌ pestel, cf. mod. لَكَد attack WetzstZMG xxii. 1868, 140; لَكِدَ stick or cleave to);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
לָכַד
- (b. h.) to seize, conquer. Yalk. Ex. 168.
- to be caught, seized. Ib. נִלְכְּדָה העיר the city was taken. Ex. R. s. 30 ולבסוף נ׳ בזקנתו וכ׳ and finally in his old age he was caught (in the tempter’s net), and began to be afraid &c. Pesik. R. s. 31 אימתי תִּילָּכֵד when will she (Jerusalem) be taken?; a. e.
לְכַד
- 1. same, to seize. Targ. Prov. XXVI, 17.—
- *2. to contain. Targ. II Esth. I, 8 לָכֵיד ed. Lag. (ed. Amst. למוד).
- to be seized, caught. Targ. Koh. VII, 26.
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 88 distinct written forms H3920 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 28 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3920, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 104 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 112 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
- Numbers 21:32
- Deuteronomy 2:34
- Joshua 6:20
- Judges 1:8
- 1 Samuel 10:20
- 2 Samuel 5:7
- 1 Kings 9:16
- 2 Kings 12:17
- 1 Chronicles 11:5
- 2 Chronicles 12:4
- Job 5:13
- Psalms 9:15
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.
