אֲבִימֶ֫לֶךְ
Abimelech
BDB lists 5 entries for ‘Abimelech’ 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
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H40 appears in the Book of Genesis — 23 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.
Genesis
- Genesis 20:2 אֲבִימֶ֨לֶךְ֙ n Proper Abraham said about Sarah his wife, "She is my sister." Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
- Genesis 20:3 אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ n Proper But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, "Behold, you are a dead man, because of the woman whom you have taken. For she is a man's wife."
- Genesis 20:4 וַ/אֲבִימֶ֕לֶךְ conj + n Proper Now Abimelech had not come near her. He said, "Lord, will you kill even a righteous nation?
- Genesis 20:8 אֲבִימֶ֜לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ear. The men were very scared.
- Genesis 20:9 אֲבִימֶ֜לֶךְ n Proper Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said to him, "What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done!"
- Genesis 20:10 אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech said to Abraham, "What did you see, that you have done this thing?"
- Genesis 20:14 אֲבִימֶ֜לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech took sheep and oxen, men-servants and women-servants, and gave them to Abraham, and restored Sarah, his wife to him.
- Genesis 20:15 אֲבִימֶ֔לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech said, "Behold, my land is before you. Dwell where it pleases you."
- Genesis 20:17 אֲבִימֶ֧לֶךְ n Proper Abraham prayed to God. God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maid-servants, and they bore children.
- Genesis 20:18 אֲבִימֶ֑לֶךְ n Proper For Yahweh had closed up tight all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.
- Genesis 21:22 אֲבִימֶ֗לֶךְ n Proper It happened at that time, that Abimelech and Phicol the captain of his host spoke to Abraham, saying, "God is with you in all that you do.
- Genesis 21:25 אֲבִימֶ֑לֶךְ אֲבִימֶֽלֶךְ n Proper n Proper Abraham complained to Abimelech because of a water well, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away.
- Genesis 21:26 אֲבִימֶ֔לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech said, "I don't know who has done this thing. Neither did you tell me, neither did I hear of it, until today."
- Genesis 21:27 לַ/אֲבִימֶ֑לֶךְ prep + n Proper Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them to Abimelech. Those two made a covenant.
- Genesis 21:29 אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech said to Abraham, "What do these seven ewe lambs which you have set by themselves mean?"
- Genesis 21:32 אֲבִימֶ֗לֶךְ n Proper So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Abimelech rose up with Phicol, the captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.
- Genesis 26:1 אֲבִימֶּ֥לֶךְ n Proper There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.
- Genesis 26:8 אֲבִימֶ֨לֶךְ֙ n Proper It happened, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was caressing Rebekah, his wife.
- Genesis 26:9 אֲבִימֶ֜לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech called Isaac, and said, "Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, 'She is my sister?'" Isaac said to him, "Because I said, 'Lest I die because of her.'"
- Genesis 26:10 אֲבִימֶ֔לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!"
- Genesis 26:11 אֲבִימֶ֔לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech charged all the people, saying, "He who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death."
- Genesis 26:16 אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ n Proper Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go from us, for you are much mightier than we."
- Genesis 26:26 וַ/אֲבִימֶ֕לֶךְ conj + n Proper Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath his friend, and Phicol the captain of his host.
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.
The Hebrew name אבימלך centers on the idea of “Abimelech.” Judges dominates its distribution — 36 of 62 verses. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 62 verses — moderately common. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 20:2. For the data behind this summary, explore 62-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H40 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 →
- 62
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 62 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #587
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 587 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 62 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 62 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 37 verses · 60%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 23 verses · 37%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 3%
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: Abimelech 56×, Abimelech's 2×, Is abimelech 2×
- American Standard Version: Abimelech 55×, Is abimelech 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Abimelech 50×, Abimelech’s 3×, Is abimelech 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Abimelech 62×, Is abimelech 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H40 across 67 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H40 across 66 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 H40 across 67 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H40 across 66 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 4 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. king of Gerar Gn 20:2, 3, 4 +, 21:22, 25(×2) +, 26:1, 8 (24 times Gn). e.g. Genesis 20:2
- 2. king of Gath ψ 34:1 error for אָכִישׁ, cf. 1 S 21:11f;—a better known Philist. name substituted for a less known (Hup3). > Others (Thes Ol De MV) think a title of Philist. kings, cf. Pharaoh. e.g. Psalms 34:1
- 3. son of Gideon Ju 8:31; 9:1, 3, 4 +, 10:1 (40 times Ju), 2 S 11:21. e.g. Judges 8:31
- 4. priest, son of Abiathar 1 Ch 18:16 error for אֲחִימֶלֶךְ q.v. (Sab. also n.pr.f. OsianderZMG 1865, 209). e.g. 1 Chronicles 18:16
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.pr.m. (Melek (= Malik, Molech) is father)—אֲבִימֶ֑לֶךְ Gn 20:18 +—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אב (ʼâb) (H1) — father.
Forms in the corpus
The 24 distinct written forms H40 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 20:3 | 9 |
| אֲבִימֶ֑לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 20:18 | 8 |
| אֲבִימֶ֔לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 20:15 | 7 |
| אֲבִימֶ֜לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 20:8 | 6 |
| אֲבִימֶ֤לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:1 | 4 |
| אֲבִימֶ֨לֶךְ֙ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 20:2 | 4 |
| אֲבִימֶֽלֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 21:25 | 4 |
| אֲבִימֶ֗לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 21:22 | 3 |
| אֲבִימֶ֛לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:22 | 3 |
| בַּ/אֲבִימֶֽלֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:23 | 2 |
| וַ/אֲבִימֶ֕לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 20:4 | 2 |
| לַ/אֲבִימֶ֑לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 21:27 | 2 |
| לַ/אֲבִימֶֽלֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:25 | 2 |
| אֲבִימֶ֣לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 11:21 | 1 |
| אֲבִימֶ֥לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:21 | 1 |
| אֲבִימֶ֧לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 20:17 | 1 |
| אֲבִימֶ֨לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:48 | 1 |
| אֲבִימֶּ֥לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 26:1 | 1 |
| בַּ/אֲבִימֶ֔לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:19 | 1 |
| וַ/אֲבִימֶ֗לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:44 | 1 |
| וַ/אֲבִימֶ֜לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:45 | 1 |
| וַ/אֲבִימֶ֥לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 18:16 | 1 |
| לַ/אֲבִימֶ֔לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:29 | 1 |
| מֵ/אֲבִימֶ֔לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Judges 9:20 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H40, 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
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- אבי ʼĂbîy H21 Abi
- אביאל ʼĂbîyʼêl H22 Abiel
- אביאסף ʼĂbîyʼâçâph H23 Abiasaph
- אבי גבעון ʼĂbîy Gibʻôwn H25 father of Gibeon
- אביגיל ʼĂbîygayil H26 Abigail
- אבידן ʼĂbîydân H27 Abidan
- אבידע ʼĂbîydâʻ H28 Abida
- אביה ʼĂbîyâh H29 Abijah
- אביהוא ʼĂbîyhûwʼ H30 Abihu
- אביהוד ʼĂbîyhûwd H31 Ahihud
- אביהיל ʼĂbîyhayil H32 Abihail
- אביטוב ʼĂbîyṭûwb H36 Abitub
- אביטל ʼĂbîyṭâl H37 Abital
- אבים ʼĂbîyâm H38 Abijam
- אבימאל ʼĂbîymâʼêl H39 Abimael
- אבינדב ʼĂbîynâdâb H41 Abinadab
- אבינעם ʼĂbîynôʻam H42 Abinoam
- אביעזר ʼĂbîyʻezer H44 Abiezer
- אביעלבון ʼĂbîy-ʻalbôwn H45 Abialbon
- אבירם ʼĂbîyrâm H48 Abiram
- אבישג ʼĂbîyshag H49 Abishag
- אבישוע ʼĂbîyshûwaʻ H50 Abishua
- אבישור ʼĂbîyshûwr H51 Abishur
- אבישי ʼĂbîyshay H52 Abishai
+6 more proper names from this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 34 — not the complete family. 30 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Abimelech). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
My father a king, or father of a king, a common name of the Philistine kings, as "Pharaoh" was of the Egyptian kings. (1.) The Philistine king of Gerar in the time of Abraham (Gen. 20:1-18). By an interposition of Providence, Sarah was delivered from his harem, and was restored to her husband Abraham. As a mark of respect he gave to Abraham valuable gifts, and offered him a settlement in any part of his country; while at the same time he delicately and yet severely rebuked him for having practised a deception upon him in pretending that Sarah was only his sister. Among the gifts presented by the king were a thousand pieces of silver as a "covering of the eyes" for Sarah; i.e., either as an atoning gift and a testimony of her innocence in the sight of all, or rather for the purpose of procuring a veil for Sarah to conceal her beauty, and thus as a reproof to her for not having worn a veil which, as a married woman, she ought to have done. A few years after this Abimelech visited Abraham, who had removed southward beyond his territory, and there entered into a league of peace and friendship with him. This league was the first of which we have any record. It was confirmed by a mutual oath at Beer-sheba (Gen. 21:22-34).
(2.) A king of Gerar in the time of Isaac, probably the son of the preceeding (Gen. 26:1-22). Isaac sought refuge in his territory during a famine, and there he acted a part with reference to his wife Rebekah similar to that of his father Abraham with reference to Sarah. Abimelech rebuked him for the deception, which he accidentally discovered. Isaac settled for a while here, and prospered. Abimelech desired him, however, to leave his territory, which Isaac did. Abimelech afterwards visited him when he was encamped at Beer-sheba, and expressed a desire to renew the covenant which had been entered into between their fathers (Gen. 26:26-31).
(3.) A son of Gideon (Judg. 9:1), who was proclaimed king after the death of his father (Judg. 8:33-9:6). One of his first acts was to murder his brothers, seventy in number, "on one stone," at Ophrah. Only one named Jotham escaped. He was an unprincipled, ambitious ruler, often engaged in war with his own subjects. When engaged in reducing the town of Thebez, which had revolted, he was struck mortally on his head by a mill-stone, thrown by the hand of a woman from the wall above. Perceiving that the wound was mortal, he desired his armour-bearer to thrust him through with his sword, that it might not be said he had perished by the hand of a woman (Judg. 9:50-57).
(4.) The son of Abiathar, and high priest in the time of David (1 Chr. 18:16). In the parallel passage, 2 Sam. 8:17, we have the name Ahimelech, and Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech. This most authorities consider the more correct reading. (5.) Achish, king of Gath, in the title of Ps. 34. (Comp. 1 Sam. 21:10-15.)
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(father of the king), the name of several Philistine kings, was probably a common title of these kings, like that of Pharaoh among the Egyptians and that of Caesar and Augustus among the Romans. Hence in the title of (Psalms 34:1) ... the name of Abimelech is given to the king, who is called Achish in (1 Samuel 21:11)
+ A Philistine, king of Gerar, Genesis 20,21, who, exercising the right claimed by Eastern princes of collecting all the beautiful women of their dominions into their harem, (Genesis 12:15; Esther 2:3) sent for and took Sarah. A similar account is given of Abraham's conduct of this occasion to that of his behavior towards Pharaoh. [Abraham] (B.C. 1920.) + Another king of Gerar int he time of Isaac, of whom a similar narrative is recorded in relation to Rebekah. (Genesis 26:1) etc. (B.C. 1817.) + Son of the judge Gideon by his Shechemite concubine. (Judges 8:31) (B.C. 1322-1319.) After his father's death he murdered all his brethren, 70 in number, with the exception of Jotham, the youngest, who concealed himself; and he then persuaded the Shechemites to elect him king. Shechem now became an independent state. After Abimelech had reigned three years, the citizens of Shechem rebelled. He was absent at the time, but he returned and quelled the insurrection. Shortly after he stormed and took Thebez, but was struck on the head by a woman with the fragment of a millstone, comp. (2 Samuel 11:21) and lest he should be said to have died by a woman, he bade his armor-bearer slay him. + A son of Abiathar. (1 Chronicles 18:16)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
father of the king
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 62 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 62 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.
