אֹ֫כֶל
food
‘food’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
Form
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
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).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 28 times (64%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 15 times (34%)
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 1 time (2%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 44 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H400 appears — 41 distinct verses across 12 books. 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.
Genesis 13 verses
- Genesis 14:11 אָכְלָ֖/ם n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp They took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their food, and went their way.
- Genesis 41:35 אֹ֨כֶל֙ אֹ֥כֶל n c ms cs n c ms Let them gather all the food of these good years that come, and lay up grain under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it.
- Genesis 41:36 הָ/אֹ֤כֶל ptcl def.art + n c ms The food will be for a store to the land against the seven years of famine, which will be in the land of Egypt; that the land not perish through the famine."
- Genesis 41:48 אֹ֣כֶל אֹ֖כֶל אֹ֧כֶל n c ms cs n c ms n c ms cs He gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, he laid up in the same.
- Genesis 42:7 אֹֽכֶל n c ms Joseph saw his brothers, and he recognized them, but acted like a stranger to them, and spoke roughly with them. He said to them, "Where did you come from?" They said, "From the land of Canaan to buy food."
- Genesis 42:10 אֹֽכֶל n c ms They said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.
- Genesis 43:2 אֹֽכֶל n c ms It happened, when they had eaten up the grain which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said to them, "Go again, buy us a little more food."
- Genesis 43:4 אֹֽכֶל n c ms If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food,
- Genesis 43:20 אֹֽכֶל n c ms and said, "Oh, my lord, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food:
- Genesis 43:22 אֹ֑כֶל n c ms We have brought down other money in our hand to buy food. We don't know who put our money in our sacks."
- Genesis 44:1 אֹ֔כֶל n c ms He commanded the steward of his house, saying, "Fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man's money in his sack's mouth.
- Genesis 44:25 אֹֽכֶל n c ms Our father said, 'Go again, buy us a little food.'
- Genesis 47:24 וּֽ/לְ/אָכְלְ/כֶ֛ם conj + prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 2mp It will happen at the harvests, that you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four parts will be your own, for seed of the field, for your food, for them of your households, and for food for your little ones."
Exodus 4 verses
- Exodus 12:4 אָכְל֔/וֹ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms and if the household be too little for a lamb, then he and his neighbor next to his house shall take one according to the number of the souls; according to what everyone can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.
- Exodus 16:16 אָכְל֑/וֹ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms This is the thing which Yahweh has commanded: "Gather of it everyone according to his eating; an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, shall you take it, every man for those who are in his tent."
- Exodus 16:18 אָכְל֖/וֹ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms When they measured it with an omer, he who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack. They gathered every man according to his eating.
- Exodus 16:21 אָכְל֑/וֹ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms They gathered it morning by morning, everyone according to his eating. When the sun grew hot, it melted.
Leviticus 2 verses
- Leviticus 11:34 הָ/אֹ֜כֶל ptcl def.art + n c ms All food which may be eaten, that on which water comes, shall be unclean; and all drink that may be drunk in every such vessel shall be unclean.
- Leviticus 25:37 אָכְלֶֽ/ךָ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.
Deuteronomy 3 verses
- Deuteronomy 2:6 אֹ֣כֶל n c ms You shall purchase food of them for money, that you may eat; and you shall also buy water of them for money, that you may drink.
- Deuteronomy 2:28 אֹ֣כֶל n c ms You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink: only let me pass through on my feet,
- Deuteronomy 23:19 אֹ֑כֶל n c ms You shall not lend on interest to your brother; interest of money, interest of food, interest of anything that is lent on interest:
Ruth 1 verse
Job 6 verses
- Job 9:26 אֹֽכֶל n c ms They have passed away as the swift ships, As the eagle that swoops on the prey.
- Job 12:11 אֹ֣כֶל n c ms Doesn't the ear try words, Even as the palate tastes its food?
- Job 20:21 לְ/אָכְל֑/וֹ prep + Qal inf.cs + sfx pers 3ms There was nothing left that he didn't devour, Therefore his prosperity shall not endure.
- Job 36:31 אֹ֥כֶל n c ms For by these he judges the people. He gives food in abundance.
- Job 38:41 אֹֽכֶל n c ms Who provides for the raven his prey, When his young ones cry to God, And wander for lack of food?
- Job 39:29 אֹ֑כֶל n c ms From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off.
Psalms 6 verses
- Psalms 78:18 אֹ֥כֶל n c ms They tempted God in their heart By asking food according to their desire.
- Psalms 78:30 אָכְלָ֥/ם n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp They didn't turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths,
- Psalms 104:21 אָכְלָֽ/ם n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp The young lions roar after their prey, And seek their food from God.
- Psalms 104:27 אָכְלָ֣/ם n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp These all wait for you, That you may give them their food in due season.
- Psalms 107:18 אֹ֭כֶל n c ms Their soul abhors all kinds of food. They draw near to the gates of death.
- Psalms 145:15 אָכְלָ֣/ם n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp The eyes of all wait for you. You give them their food in due season.
Proverbs 1 verse
Lamentations 2 verses
- Lamentations 1:11 בְּ/אֹ֖כֶל prep + n c ms All her people sigh, they seek bread; They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul: Look, Yahweh, and see; for I am become abject.
- Lamentations 1:19 אֹ֨כֶל֙ n c ms I called for my lovers, [but] they deceived me: My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, While they sought them food to refresh their souls.
Joel 1 verse
Habakkuk 1 verse
Malachi 1 verse
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.
“food” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun אכל (ʼôkel). The King James Version also renders it “meat,” a usage modern versions have dropped for “food” — see the renderings breakdown. With 41 verses in 12 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Genesis, which alone accounts for 32% of its uses. Lexicons map it across 3 senses. See the sense tree, 41-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H400 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 →
- 41
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 41 distinct verses.
- 12 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 12 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #819
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 819 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 41 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 41 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 22 verses · 54%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 16 verses · 39%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 7%
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: Food 13×, Meat 13×, Eating 4×
- American Standard Version: Food 24×, Eating 3×, All the food 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Food 32×, Excess food 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Food 34×, Eating 4×, Food of 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H400 across 43 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 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H400 across 43 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 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 H400 across 41 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 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H400 across 44 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 3 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.
- food
- food supply
- meal, dinner
Word origin
n.m. Gn 41:36 food (Arabic أُكْلٌ, Aramaic אוּכְלָא, ܐܘܽܟܠܴܐ, As. akalu DlW, Eth. እክል )—א׳ abs. Gn 41:35 +; cstr. Gn 41:35, 48; sf. אָכְלֶ֑ךָ Lv 25:37; אָכְלוֹ Mal 1:12. etc.;—Hex mostly JED, not Ez.—food, food-supply, especially cereals of store in Egypt Gn 41:35(×2) + 12 textual Gn 41–44; 47:24 cf. 14:11 (JE); also Lv 11:34; 25:37 (P) Dt 2:6, 28 (D); נֶשֶׁךְ א׳ usury of food Dt 23:20 (D) (‖ נ׳ כֶּסֶף, etc.); לְעֵת הָאֹכֶל at meal-time Ru 2:14; †poet. 17 textual;—food ψ 107:18; of offerings Mal 1:12; partic. food Jb 12:11 (as tasted); 36:31 (as given by God) so ψ 145:15; א׳ לְהָשִׁיב נָ֑פֶשׁ La 1:11 cf. v 19; especially cereals Pr 13:23 Jo 1:16 Hb 3:17; but also flesh ψ 78:18, 30; of food (prey) of wild animals ψ 104:21 (‖ טרף)27; of prey of eagles Jb 9:26; 39:29; ravens 38:41.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אכל (ʼâkal) (H398) — to eat.
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.
אָכַל
- √אך to rub,
- 1. to gnaw, eat, consume. Inf. in Y. freq. לוֹכַל = לֶאֱכוֹל. Ber. I, 1; a. v. fr.
- 2. trnsf. to absorb, occupy, take away. Y. Shebu. VII, 38ᵃ בשרבית אוֹכֶלֶת בו when interests gnaw on (absorb) the property. Y. Erub. IV, 21ᵈ bot. ד׳ אמות אוֹכְלוֹת וכ׳ four cubits entering into the area of Tiberias. Num. R. s. 4 כמה לוחות אוֹכְלוֹת how much space did the tablets occupy &c.? B. Bath. 14ᵃ (interchanging with איגרות, Var. אוגדות, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 5, 6).
- 3. (euphem.) to sleep with. Keth. V, 9, differ. of opin. ib. 65ᵇ; Y. ib. 30ᵇ top a. bot.
- to be eaten &c. Zeb. I, 3; Ber. I, 1; a. fr.
- to consume, burn. Tam. I, 4 המְאוּכָּלוֹת הפנימיות (Talm. ed. המעו׳) the thoroughly lighted coals in the centre; Y. Yoma II, 39ᶜ
- to give to eat, cause to eat. Keth. V, 3 היבם אינו מַאֵכִיל וכ׳ the Yabam does not transfer the privilege of eating T’rumah to his sister-in-law. Kidd. 31ᵃ יש מאכיל וכ׳ one may feed his father on pheasants &c.; a. fr.
- 1. to be consumed, burnt up, digested. Ber. VIII, 7 עד כדי שיִתְאַכֵּל וכ׳ Ar. (ed. שיתע׳) until the food is digested (or absorbed) in his bowels. Tam. II, 1; a. e.
- 2. to be worn off, spent. Snh. VI, 12 Y. ed. נתא׳ הבשר (Mish. ib. VI, 6 נתע׳) when the flesh of the corpse was gone. Cant. R. to IV, 4 שלא נתא׳ אחת מהן none of them was worn off. Kidd. 59ᵃ נתא׳ המעות the money was spent; a. e.
אֲכַל
- 1. same.—Inf. מֵיכַל, מֵיכוּל. Targ. Gen. II, 16; a. fr.—Y. Ter. VIII, 46ᵃ כד אתון יֵיכלון when they came and were about eating; ib. (more corr.) אתון מיכל; a. fr.
- 2. with קרצי prop. to eat (the bread of) destruction, eat the informer’s bread, hence to inform against. Dan. III, 8; VI, 25.—Targ. Ps. XV, 3; a. fr.—Gitt. 56ᵃ איכול בהו קו׳; Lam. R. to IV, 2 איכול קרצהון I will inform against them. e.g. Daniel 3:8
- to give to eat, to support. Y. Ter. X, 47ᵇ bot. אוכלה ליה he gave it to him to eat. Gen. R. s. 48, end (read:) אוכלית אשקית לוי hast thou given (thy guest) to eat? to drink? do escort him, i.e. perform thy duties fully. Y. Kidd. I, 61ᵇ הוה מייכל לאבוי וכ׳ fed his father on &c.; a. fr.
- , אִתְאָכִיל to be eaten, consumed. Targ. Ps. LXVIII, 23; a. fr. Tanḥ. Emor, 6 ומה דהבא מִתְאֲכִיל וכ׳; Lev. R. s. 27 ומה זה וכ׳ what is this? do they eat gold &c.? Kidd. 59ᵃ קא מתאכלי were eaten up (spent). [אכלי Af. of כלי to cry, v. כלי.]
אֲכַל II
- (sec. r. of כול) to measure. Ned. 51ᵃ ליכיל לי מר please measure for me. Ruth R. introd. 2. הא … סאה תקום אכול (read סאתה קום) here is the bag and here the measure, get up and fill it; v. כּוּל.
אֹכֶל
- , v. אוֹכֶל
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 24 distinct written forms H400 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H400, 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
- אכילה ʼăkîylâh H396 food
- אכל ʼăkal H399 to eat
- מאכל maʼăkâl H3978 food
- מאכלת maʼăkeleth H3979 knife
- מאכלת maʼăkôleth H3980 fuel
- מכלת makkôleth H4361 food
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 9 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 37 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 41 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
- Genesis 14:11
- Exodus 12:4
- Leviticus 11:34
- Deuteronomy 2:6
- Ruth 2:14
- Job 9:26
- Psalms 104:21
- Proverbs 13:23
- Lamentations 1:11
- Joel 1:16
- Habakkuk 3:17
- Malachi 1:12
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.
