לָמַד
to learn
‘to learn’ is one of 4 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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
- Pual
- The passive counterpart of the Piel.
Form
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Cohortative
- A first-person volitional form expressing wish or resolve (“let me / let us write”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Person
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H3925 appears in the Book of Hosea — 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.
Hosea
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, למד (lâmad) means “to learn.” Scripture first uses it in Deuteronomy 4:1. With 79 verses in 17 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Psalms (33% of all occurrences). Different stems carry different senses — BDB groups them under 3 stems, among them Qal and Piel. Dig into 79-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3925 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 →
- 79
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 79 distinct verses.
- 17 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 17 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #475
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 475 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 79 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Psalms 26 verses 33%
- Deuteronomy 16 verses 20%
- Jeremiah 10 verses 13%
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 79 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 38 verses · 48%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 25 verses · 32%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 16 verses · 20%
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: Teach 19×, Learn 5×, Taught 5×
- American Standard Version: Teach 15×, Learn 5×, Taught 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Teach 11×, Teach me 10×, Learn 8×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Teach 9×, Teach me 9×, Learn 7×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3925 across 85 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 41 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3925 across 85 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 48 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 H3925 across 82 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 40 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 4 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3925 across 95 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 49 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
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 Pual (the passive of Piel).
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 3 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. 3 ms. ל׳ Is 26:10; 1 s. לָמַדְתִּי Pr 30:3 + 3 times Pf.; Impf. 3 ms. יִלְמַד Dt 17:19; 1 s. אֶלְמְדָה ψ 119:73; 3 pl. יִלְמְדוּן Dt 4:10 + 12 times Impf.; Imv. לִמְדוּ Is 1:17; Inf. abs. לָמֹד Je 12:16; cstr. sf. לָמְדִי ψ 119:7; Pt. pass. cstr. לְמוּדֵי 1 Ch 5:18;—learn something, c. acc. Dt 5:1 ψ 119:7, 71, 73; 106:35 Pr 30:3 Is 2:4; 26:9, 10; 29:24 Je 12:16(×2) Mi 4:3; c. אֶל Je 10:2; c. inf. Dt 18:9 Is 1:17 Ez 19:3, 6; לְיִרְאָה Dt 4:10; 14:23; 17:19; 31:13; וְיָֽרְאוּ Dt 31:12; לְמוּדֵי מִלְחָמָה trained to war 1 Ch 5:18. e.g. Isaiah 26:10
Piel
- Pf. 3 ms. לִמַּד Ec 12:9; 2 m. sf. לִמַּדְתָּנִי ψ 71:17 + 7 times Pf.; Impf. יְלַמֵּד ψ 25:9; יְלַמֶּד־ Jb 21:22; 2 ms. sf. תְּלַמְּדֶנּוּ ψ 94:12; 1 s. אֲלַמְּדָה ψ 51:15; 3 mpl. יְלַמֵּד֑וּן Dt 4:10 + 12 times Impf.; Imv. sf. לַמְּדֵנִי ψ 25:4 + 12 times Imv.; Inf. לַמֵּד Je 32:33 + 9 times; Pt. מְלַמֵּד Dt 4:1 + 7 times Pt.;—teach, abs. 2 Ch 17:7, 9(×2) ψ 60:1; teach some one something, c. double acc. Dt 4:5, 14; 5:28; 11:19; 31:19, 22 Ju 3:2 2 S 1:18 (?), ψ 25:4, 9; 34:12; 51:15; 94:10; 119:12, 26, 64, 66, 68, 108, 124, 135, 171; 132:12 Ec 12:9 Is 40:14 Je 2:33; 9:13, 19; 13:21 Dn 1:4; c. acc. pers. Dt 4:10 ψ 25:5; 71:17 Ct 8:2 Is 48:17 Je 31:34; 32:33(×2) Ezr 7:10; acc. rei Jb 21:22; acc. pers. ל rei 2 S 22:35 = ψ 18:35, ψ 144:1; acc. rei ל pers. Jb 21:22; acc. pers. מִן rei ψ 94:12; acc. pers. בְּ rei Is 40:14; acc. pers. inf. rei Dt 4:1; 6:1; 20:18 ψ 143:10 Je 9:4; 12:16; מְלַמְּדַי my teachers ψ 119:99 Pr 5:13. e.g. Ecclesiastes 12:9
Pual
- Pf. 3 ms. לֻמָּ֑ד Je 31:18; Pt. pl. cstr. מְלֻמְּדֵי 1 Ch 25:7 Ct 3:8; f. מְלֻמָּדָה Is 29:13 Ho 10:11;—trained, as soldiers Ct 3:8; singers 1 Ch 25:7; a bullock to the yoke Ho 10:11; taught, of a human command Is 29:13. e.g. Jeremiah 31:18
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. exercise in, learn (NH id., be accustomed to, learn; Aramaic לְמַד (rare) learn; Syriac ܠܡܰܕ Pa. accustom, combine; Ettaph. be taught, etc.; Assyrian lamâdu, learn, DlProl 29);—
— 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.
לָמֵד I
- (b. h.)
- 1. to be joined, affixed to, v. Pi.
- to accustom, train. Part. pass. לָמוּד, f. לְמוּדָה; pl. לְמוּדִים, לְמוּדִין; לְמוּדוֹת. Y. Ter. IV, 42ᵈ כמות שהוא ל׳ according to what he is used to. Lev. R. s. 4 אינה ל׳ מבית וכ׳ she is not used (to handle T’rumah) from her father’s house. Dem. IV, 4 ואם … ל׳ וכ׳ but if a priest or the poor are habitual guests at his table. Sifra K’dosh. Par. 3, ch. VI, v. לִימּוּד; a. fr.—3) to learn, study. Ab. II, 5 לא הביישן לָמֵד וכ׳ he who is bashful will not learn, nor can the hot-tempered teach, v. בַּיְישָׁן. Ib. IV, 1 הלוֹמֵד מכל אדם he who learns from everybody. Ib. 20 הל׳ ילד he who studies at an early age; הל׳ זקן who begins to study at an advanced age. Ib. I, 9 שמא … יִלְמְדוּ לשקר lest through them (your intricate cross-examinations) they may be led to tell a lie. Taan. 7ᵃ; Macc. 10ᵃ הרבה לָמַדְתִּי וכ׳ I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, and most from my pupils; a. v. fr.—B. Mets. 71ᵃ, a. fr. הא לָמַדְתָּ here you learn, i.e. this proves. [Targ. Esth. I, 1 מכאן אתה לָמֵד from this you will learn.]
- 1. to join; to arrange. Sabb. 125ᵇ צאו ולַמְּדוּם go out and place them (the building stones) in order (for sitting thereon the next day).—V. לִימּוּדִים.
- 2. to train, accustom. Hor. 13ᵇ יְלַמֵּד אדם עצמו וכ׳ man should train his body (to relieve his bowels) early in the morning &c. Nidd. 66ᵇ לעולם ילמד אדם בתוך וכ׳ man should make it a rule in his house; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְלוּמָּד, f. מְלוּמֶּדֶת; pl. מְלוּמָּדִים, מְלוּמָּדִין; מְלוּמָּדוֹת trained, experienced. Snh. 109ᵃ top (in Chald. dict.) דמל׳ בניסין הוא for he has experience in miracles. Taan. 25ᵃ. Succ. 29ᵃ מפני שמל׳ במכות הן (not במכותיהן; Ms. M. שרגילין) because they (the Jews) have experience in afflictions; a. e.
- 3. to teach, instruct; to argue. Keth. 50ᵃ הלומד … ומְלַמְּדָהּ he who studies the Law and teaches it. Pes. 112ᵃ לַמְּדֵנִי תורה teach me the Law; איני מְלַמֶּדְךָ I will not teach thee. Ib. כשאתה מְלַמֵּד … לַמְּדֵהוּ וכ׳ when thou teachest thy son, teach him from a revised (correct) copy. Snh. 19ᵇ אהרן ילד ומשה לי׳ וכ׳ Aaron begot (his sons), but Moses taught them, therefore they are recorded under his name; a. v. fr.—מְלַמֵּד תינוקות primary teacher. Ib. 17ᵇ. B. Bath. 21ᵃ מְלַמְּדֵי ת׳ teachers.—ל׳ זכות על to argue in favor of, to plead for; ל׳ חובה to plead against. Sabb. 32ᵃ ואפי׳ … מְלַמְּדִים … ואחד מלמד עליו זכות ניצול and even if nine hundred … plead against him, and one (good deed) for him, he will be saved; a. v. fr.—Esp. (in textual interpret.) to lead, hint, throw light on. Sifra Emor Par. 4, ch. IV הייתי אומר תושב … בא שכיר ולי׳ על התושב וכ׳ I might have thought toshab (Lev. XXII, 10) meant one hired for a limited period; therefore sakhir (ibid.) comes in to throw light on toshab that it means one bought for life; Kidd. 4ᵃ; Yeb. 70ᵃ.—Sifra introd. יצא מן הכלל לְלַמֵּד is specified for the sake of illustration, v. כְּלָל. Meïl. 11ᵇ, a. fr. שני כתובים … אין מְלַמְּדִין two verses which coincide (teach the same), prove nothing, cannot serve as an illustration for similar cases; a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 22:10
- to practice. Gitt. 24ᵇ; Zeb. 2ᵇ בסופרים העשויים להִתְלַמֵּד וכ׳ it treats of scribes who are in the habit of writing documents merely for practice. Gitt. 60ᵃ לכתוב … להתל׳ בה to write one portion of the Pentateuch for a child for practicing purposes; a. fr.
לָמֵד II
- 1. accustomed. Tanḥ. Noah 2 (מה של׳) מה שהיה ל׳ what each was used to eat (ed. Bub. ib. לָמוּד).
- 2. (of persons) learning, arguing.—Pl. לְמֵדִין, לְמֵי׳. Nidd. 22ᵇ כל ג"ש … אין ל׳ הימנה from an analogy of textual words (v. גְּזֵרָה) which are not free for interpretation (being necessary to the subject proper), you cannot derive any general rule; ib. ל׳ ומשיבין we may derive a rule, but it is open to argument; a. fr.—הל׳ לפני חכמים those who were permitted to argue before the scholars (e. g. Levi before Rabbi). Meïl. 9ᵇ; Snh. 17ᵇ (v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 3). Men. 80ᵇ ל׳ לפני רבי.
- 3. (of subjects) having light thrown upon, defined. Pes. 25ᵇ, a. e. הרי זה בא לְלַמֵּד ונמצא לָמֵד (a proverbial phrase: behold this one comes as a teacher and turns out a learner) this is intended to throw light (on the case of a violated betrothed) and is at the same time receiving light.—Sifra introd. דבר הל׳ מעניינו something which is clearly understood from the context; a. fr.—Y. Kidd. I, 59ᵃ עבריה למידה מבת חורין ועברי ל׳ מעבריה the case of the Ibriya (that a Hebrew handmaid can be acquired by a written deed) is learned from that of a free woman, and that of the Ibri (the Hebrew bondsman) from the Ibriya; נמצא לָ׳ מלָּ׳ consequently a case may be illustrated by one itself defined (only indirectly) by analogy; a. fr.
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 78 distinct written forms H3925 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; 18 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3925, 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 62 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 79 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
- Deuteronomy 4:1
- Judges 3:2
- 2 Samuel 1:18
- 1 Chronicles 5:18
- 2 Chronicles 17:7
- Ezra 7:10
- Job 21:22
- Psalms 25:4
- Proverbs 5:13
- Ecclesiastes 12:9
- Song of Solomon 3:8
- Isaiah 1:17
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.
