אָכֵן
surely
also: truly, indeed 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
- Adverb
- A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
Every verse where H403 appears in the Book of Psalms — 3 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.
Psalms
- Psalms 31:22 אָכֵ֗ן adv As for me, I said in my haste, "I am cut off from before your eyes." Nevertheless you heard the voice of my petitions when I cried to you.
- Psalms 66:19 אָ֭כֵן adv But most assuredly, God has listened. He has heard the voice of my prayer.
- Psalms 82:7 אָ֭כֵן adv Nevertheless you shall die like men, And fall like one of the rulers."
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.
אכן (ʼâkên) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “surely.” It first appears in Genesis 28:16. It turns up in 17 verses across 9 books, an uncommon footprint. It also covers “truly” and “indeed”, alongside “surely” — see its full sense range. From the same root come כון, כון and כן. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H403 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 →
- 17
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 17 distinct verses.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,612
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,612 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 17 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 17 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 verses · 65%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 24%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 12%
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: Surely 8×, But 3×, Truly 2×
- American Standard Version: Surely 7×, Nevertheless 2×, Truly 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Surely 6×, But 5×, Has surely 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Surely 8×, Truly 3×, Indeed 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H403 across 18 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H403 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 H403 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear 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 H403 across 18 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 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 2 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.
- a. surely, truly, especially at beginning of a speech (stronger & more decided than אַךְ) Gn 28:16 Ex 2:14 1 S 15:32 Is 40:7; 45:15 Je 3:23(×2); 4:10; 8:8. In 1 K 11:2 אָכֵן stands unusually; and פֶּן־ (cf. 𝔊 𝔖 𝔗 should prob. be read (so Klo). e.g. Genesis 28:16
- b. emphasizing a contrast, but indeed, but in fact, especially after אָמַרְתִּי I said or thought, expressing the reality, in opp. to what had been wrongly imagined, Is 49:4b (opp. to v 4a) 53:4 (opp. to v 3 end) Je 3:20 (opp. to the expectation v 19b) Zp 3:7b ψ 31:23b (opp. to v 23a) 66:19 82:7 (opp. to v 6) Jb 32:8 (opp. to v 7). e.g. Isaiah 49:4
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
(perh. from אַךְ; cf. Aramaic דֵּךְ & דִּכֵּן) adv. with strong asseverative force:
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כון (kûwn) (H3559) — to be established.
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.
אָכֵין
- (v. כֵּן) thus, in this manner. Y. Ber. III, 6ᵃ א׳ בר נש וכ׳ is it thus man deals with his neighbor? Y. Keth. II, 26ᶜ bot. אתמול אמרת א׳ וכ׳ yesterday thou saidst so, and to-day thou sayest otherwise; a. fr. V. הָכֵין.
אָכֵן
- , v. אָכֵין
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 9 distinct written forms H403 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| אָכֵן֙ | Adverb | Genesis 28:16 | 6 |
| אָ֭כֵן | Adverb | Job 32:8 | 3 |
| אָכֵ֖ן | Adverb | Exodus 2:14 | 2 |
| אָכֵ֥ן | Adverb | Isaiah 40:7 | 2 |
| אָכֵ֕ן | Adverb | Isaiah 45:15 | 1 |
| אָכֵ֗ן | Adverb | Psalms 31:22 | 1 |
| אָכֵ֛ן | Adverb | Jeremiah 3:20 | 1 |
| אָכֵ֤ן | Adverb | Isaiah 53:4 | 1 |
| אָכֵן֩ | Adverb | Jeremiah 4:10 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H403, 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
Derived from this word
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- יכין Yâkîyn H3199 Jachin
- יכניה Yᵉkonyâh H3204 Jeconiah
- כון Kûwn H3560 Chun
- כונניהו Kôwnanyâhûw H3562 Cononiah
- כיון Kîyûwn H3594 Chiun
- נכון Nâkôwn H5225 Nachon
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 12 — not the complete family. 6 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 15 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 17 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 28:16
- Exodus 2:14
- 1 Samuel 15:32
- 1 Kings 11:2
- Job 32:8
- Psalms 82:7
- Isaiah 40:7
- Jeremiah 3:20
- Zephaniah 3:7
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.
