מַדָּע
knowledge
‘knowledge’ 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.
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.
5 distinct verses where H4093 appears in the Absolute state, across 2 books. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
2 Chronicles 3 verses
- 2 Chronicles 1:10 וּ/מַדָּע֙ conj + n c ms Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people; for who can judge this your people, that is so great?
- 2 Chronicles 1:11 וּ/מַדָּ֔ע conj + n c ms God said to Solomon, Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked riches, wealth, or honor, nor the life of those who hate you, neither yet have asked long life; but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself, that you may judge my people, over whom I have made you king:
- 2 Chronicles 1:12 וְ/הַ/מַּדָּ֖ע conj + ptcl def.art + n c ms wisdom and knowledge is granted to you; and I will give you riches, and wealth, and honor, such as none of the kings have had who have been before you; neither shall there any after you have the like.
Daniel 2 verses
- Daniel 1:4 מַדָּ֔ע n c ms youths in whom was no blemish, but well-favored, and skillful in all wisdom, and endowed with knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability to stand in the king's palace; and that he should teach them the learning and the language of the Chaldeans.
- Daniel 1:17 מַדָּ֥ע n c ms Now as for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.
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.
מדע — transliterated maddâʻ — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “knowledge.” Its uses cluster heavily in 2 Chronicles (50% of all occurrences). Spanning 6 verses in 3 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Its earliest occurrence is 2 Chronicles 1:10. The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 6-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4093 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 →
- 6
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 6 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,040
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,040 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 6 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 2 Chronicles 3 verses 50%
- Daniel 2 verses 33%
- Ecclesiastes 1 verse 17%
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 6 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 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: Knowledge 4×
- American Standard Version: Knowledge 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Knowledge 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Knowledge 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4093 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H4093 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H4093 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H4093 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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.
- 1. knowledge (‖ חָכְמָה) of Solomon, 2 Ch 1:10, 11, 12 Dn 1:4 (‖ חָכְמָה and דַּעַת), v 7 (‖ הַשְׂכֵּל). e.g. 2 Chronicles 1:10
- 2. place of knowledge, mind, (in our idiom also) thought Ec 10:20. e.g. Ecclesiastes 10:20
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
n.m. 2 Ch 1:12 knowledge, thought (late); מַדָּע 2 Ch 1:10 + 4 times; מַדָּֽעֲךָ Ec 10:20;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from ידע (yâdaʻ) (H3045) — to know.
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.
מַדָּע
- intelligence. Macc. 23ᵃ, v. יָתֵר.
מַדַּע
- , knowledge, teaching; reason. Targ. Jer. III, 15. Targ. Prov. I, 5. Targ. Ps. XXXIV, 1 (Ms. דעת׳).—ידע מ׳ (euphem. for משתין בקיר) male adult. Targ. I Sam. XXV, 22; a. fr.—Pl. (fem. form) מַדְּעָן, מִדְּ׳ objects worth knowing or well-known, (used of persons) notables. Targ. O. Deut. I, 13; 15 (v. Berl. Massorah, p. 120; h. text ידעים).—V. מַנְדָּע.
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 6 distinct written forms H4093 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| בְּ/מַדָּֽעֲ/ךָ֗ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ecclesiastes 10:20 | 1 |
| וְ/הַ/מַּדָּ֖ע | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 1:12 | 1 |
| וּ/מַדָּ֔ע | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 1:11 | 1 |
| וּ/מַדָּע֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 1:10 | 1 |
| מַדָּ֔ע | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 1:4 | 1 |
| מַדָּ֥ע | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 1:17 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4093, 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
- דע dêaʻ H1843 knowledge
- דעת daʻath H1847 knowledge
- ידע yᵉdaʻ H3046 to know
- ידעני yiddᵉʻônîy H3049 soothsayer
- מודע môwdaʻ H4129 kinsman
- מודעת môwdaʻath H4130 kindred
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.
- דעואל Dᵉʻûwʼêl H1845 Deuel
- ידוע Yaddûwaʻ H3037 Jaddua
- ידיעאל Yᵉdîyʻăʼêl H3043 Jediael
- ידע Yâdâʻ H3047 Jada
- ידעיה Yᵉdaʻyâh H3048 Jedaiah
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 14 — not the complete family. 5 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 6 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 6 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.
