אָלָה
oath
‘oath’ is one of 4 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
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 26 times (72%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 5 times (14%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute 3 times (8%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct 1 time (3%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Infinitive Construct 1 time (3%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 36 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H423 appears — 32 distinct verses across 15 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 2 verses
- Genesis 24:41 מֵ/אָ֣לָתִ֔/י מֵ/אָלָתִֽ/י prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs Then will you be clear from my oath, when you come to my relatives. If they don't give her to you, you shall be clear from my oath.'
- Genesis 26:28 אָלָ֛ה n c fs They said, "We saw plainly that Yahweh was with you. We said, 'Let there now be an oath between us, even between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you,
Leviticus 1 verse
Numbers 3 verses
- Numbers 5:21 הָ/אָלָה֒ לְ/אָלָ֥ה ptcl def.art + n c fs prep + n c fs then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, 'Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh allows your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell;
- Numbers 5:23 הָ/אָלֹ֥ת ptcl def.art + n c fp "The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness.
- Numbers 5:27 לְ/אָלָ֖ה prep + n c fs When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she is defiled, and has committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away: and the woman will be a curse among her people.
Deuteronomy 6 verses
- Deuteronomy 29:12 וּ/בְ/אָלָת֑/וֹ conj + prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms that you may enter into the covenant of Yahweh your God, and into his oath, which Yahweh your God makes with you this day;
- Deuteronomy 29:14 הָ/אָלָ֖ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath,
- Deuteronomy 29:19 הָֽ/אָלָ֜ה ptcl def.art + n c fs and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to destroy the moist with the dry.
- Deuteronomy 29:20 הָ֣/אָלָ֔ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Yahweh will not pardon him, but then the anger of Yahweh and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book shall lie on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky.
- Deuteronomy 29:21 אָל֣וֹת n c fp cs Yahweh will set him apart to evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law.
- Deuteronomy 30:7 הָ/אָל֖וֹת ptcl def.art + n c fp Yahweh your God will put all these curses on your enemies, and on those who hate you, who persecuted you.
1 Kings 1 verse
2 Chronicles 2 verses
- 2 Chronicles 6:22 לְ/הַֽאֲלֹת֑/וֹ אָלָ֛ה prep + Hiphil inf.cs + sfx pers 3ms n c fs If a man sin against his neighbor, and an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and he comes and swears before your altar in this house;
- 2 Chronicles 34:24 הָ/אָלוֹת֙ ptcl def.art + n c fp Thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will bring evil on this place, and on the inhabitants of it, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah.
Nehemiah 1 verse
Job 1 verse
Psalms 2 verses
- Psalms 10:7 אָלָ֤ה n c fs His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and oppression. Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity.
- Psalms 59:12 וּ/מֵ/אָלָ֖ה conj + prep + n c fs For the sin of their mouth, and the words of their lips, Let them be caught in their pride, For the curses and lies which they utter.
Proverbs 1 verse
Isaiah 1 verse
Jeremiah 4 verses
- Jeremiah 23:10 אָלָה֙ n c fs For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourns; the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;
- Jeremiah 29:18 לְ/אָלָ֤ה prep + n c fs I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations where I have driven them;
- Jeremiah 42:18 לְ/אָלָ֤ה prep + n c fs For thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel: As my anger and my wrath has been poured forth on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my wrath be poured forth on you, when you shall enter into Egypt; and you shall be an object of horror, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more.
- Jeremiah 44:12 לְ/אָלָ֣ה prep + n c fs I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall; they shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be an object of horror, [and] an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.
Ezekiel 5 verses
- Ezekiel 16:59 אָלָ֖ה n c fs For thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will also deal with you as you have done, who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant.
- Ezekiel 17:13 בְּ/אָלָ֔ה prep + n c fs and he took of the seed royal, and made a covenant with him; he also brought him under an oath, and took away the mighty of the land;
- Ezekiel 17:16 אָ֣לָת֔/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely in the place where the king dwells who made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he broke, even with him in the midst of Babylon he shall die.
- Ezekiel 17:18 אָלָ֖ה n c fs For he has despised the oath by breaking the covenant; and behold, he had given his hand, and yet has done all these things; he shall not escape.
- Ezekiel 17:19 אָֽלָתִ/י֙ n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: As I live, surely my oath that he has despised, and my covenant that he has broken, I will even bring it on his own head.
Daniel 1 verse
Zechariah 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.
אלה (ʼâlâh) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “oath.” It is not a single-sense word — see its full sense range. Spanning 32 verses in 15 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Genesis 24:41. Related forms include אלה, אלה and אליה. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H423 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 →
- 32
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 32 distinct verses.
- 15 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 15 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #990
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 990 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 32 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Deuteronomy 6 verses 19%
- Ezekiel 5 verses 16%
- Jeremiah 4 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 32 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 12 verses · 38%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 12 verses · 38%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 25%
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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 3 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Oath 12×, Cursing 4×, Curse 3×
- American Standard Version†: Oath 8×, Curse 3×, Cursing 3×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Oath 12×, Curse 6×, Curses 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Oath 13×, Curse 11×, Curses 5×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H423 across 36† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 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 H423 across 35† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 H423 across 34† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H423 across 34† 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.
9 senses and sub-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.
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 9 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.
אלה I swear, curse (cf. I. אלה? so Thes LagOr ii. 3)
Qal
- Pf. 1 K 8:31 (= 2 Ch 6:22 all Vrss Th Bö Bä Kp reading וְאָלָה); אָלִית Ju 17:2; Inf. abs. אָלֹה Ho 4:2; אָלוֹת Ho 10:4. e.g. 1 Kings 8:31
- 1. swear, take oath before God 1 K 8:31 (= 2 Ch 6:22); in covenants Ho 4:2; 10:4 (falsely). e.g. 1 Kings 8:31
- 2. curse Ju 17:2. e.g. Judges 17:2
Hiphil
- Impf. וַיֹּ֫אֶ֗ל 1 S 14:24; Inf. לְהַאֲלֹתוֹ 1 K 8:31 = 2 Ch 6:22 adjure, put under oath. e.g. 1 Samuel 14:24
אלה II oath Gn 26
- 1. oath in testimony Lv 5:1 Nu 5:21(×2) (P) Pr 29:24; בא באלה come into an oath Ne 10:30; הביא באלה bring into an oath Ez 17:13; נשׂא אלה 1 K 8:31 (= 2 Ch 6:22). e.g. Leviticus 5:1
- 2. oath of covenant Gn 24:41(×2); 26:28 (J) Dt 29:11, 13; בזה אלה despise an oath Ez 16:59; 17:16, 18, 19. e.g. Genesis 24:41
- 3. curse (a) from God Nu 5:23 (P) Dt 29:18, 19, 20; 30:7 2 Ch 34:24 Is 24:6 Je 23:10 Dn 9:11 Zc 5:3; (b) from men Jb 31:30 ψ 10:7; 59:13. e.g. Numbers 5:23
- 4. execration in the phrase היה לאלה become an execration Nu 5:27 (P) Je 29:18; 42:18; 44:12. e.g. Numbers 5:27
אלה III wail (Aramaic אֲלָא, ܐܶܠܴܐ ) only
Qal
- Imv. fs. אֱלִי Jo 1:8 (v. אַלְלַי). e.g. Joel 1:8
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
I. vb. swear, curse (cf. I. אלה? so Thes LagOr ii. 3)—
II. n.f. oath Gn 26:28 +; sf. אָלָתִי, אָלָתוֹ Gn 24:41 + (4 times); pl. אָלוֹת Dt 29:20 + (4 times)
III. vb. wail (Aramaic אֲלָא, ܐܶܠܴܐ ) only
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אלה (ʼâlâh) (H422) — to swear.
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.
אָלָה
- to curse, v. אלי.
אָלָה ²
- imprecation, curse. Sot. II, 5 (17ᵃ); a. fr.—Pl. אָלוֹת. Ib. a. e.
אֵלֶּה
- c. pl. (b. h.; v. preced.) these, those (cmp. הרי). Ex. R. s. 30 v’elleh (and this) adds to the preceding (continues), elleh (these) restricts. V. אֵלּוּ.
אֵלָה
- v. preced. ws.) terebinth. Shebi. VII, 5.
אלה
- Sabb. 90ᵃ Ar., v. אֵילָא 3.
אַלָּה
- Josh. XXIV, 26; v. אַלָּתָא) [pointed, prominent] e.g. Joshua 24:26
- 1. lance, fork. Kel. XVI, 8 חפוי הא׳, v. חִפּוּי. Pes. 57ᵃ אוי לי מֵאַלָּתָן woe to me (I am afraid) of their fork (weapon). Sabb. VI, 3 (63ᵃ) ed. (Ms. אלא); Y. ibid. 8ᵇ (expl. דייקרן).
- 2. sign-pole, used in the barn as a mark. Ib.; Y. Maasr. I, 49ᵃ bot.; Tosef. Ter. III, 11 משתיעקר הא׳ (ed. Zuck. משיתעשר, corr. acc.) as soon as the sign-pole (fork) is removed (indicating that the grain is ready for use and priestly gifts).
אֱלָהּ
- (= h. אֱלוֹהַּ) God. Dan. III, 28; a. fr.—Targ. O. Deut. XXXIII, 26; a. fr.—Lev. R. s. 5, end את אלה רב Ar. (ed. אלוה). Y. B. Mets. II, 8ᶜ אלההון דיהודאי the God of the Jews. Y. Snh. X, 28ᵇ.—Pl. (also plur. majest.) אֱלָהִין. Dan. II, 11; a. e.—אֱלָהַיָּא. Jer. X, 11. Targ. Ps. CXXXVI, 2 אלהי אלהיא the God of gods. [Gen. R. s. 26 כומריא גנבו א׳ וכ׳ (read אלהון) when priests rob—who would swear by their god?] Ib. (ref. to Gen. VI, 2).—Lev. R. s. 33 תמן קריין … אֱלָהַיָּיא there (in Rome) they call their kings gods. e.g. Daniel 3:28
אלי I
- to curse. Sifré Num. 18 (ref. to Num. XVIII, 21) לאלה שיהו אָלִין בה וכ׳ ‘as a curse’ means that people shall curse by her (pointing to her), ‘may happen unto thee what happened to …’. e.g. Numbers 18:21
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 29 distinct written forms H423 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 H423, 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
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 30 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 32 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 24:41
- Leviticus 5:1
- Numbers 5:21
- Deuteronomy 29:12
- 1 Kings 8:31
- 2 Chronicles 6:22
- Job 31:30
- Psalms 10:7
- Proverbs 29:24
- Isaiah 24:6
- Jeremiah 23:10
- Ezekiel 16:59
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.
