Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

מַחֲנֶה

camp

‘camp’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓

H4264 Strong's Hebrew
machăneh Transliteration
/makh-an-eh'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 216 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

“camp” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun מחנה (machăneh). One archaism survives in the King James Version — “host” — where modern Bibles read “camp”; see the renderings breakdown. It appears 190 verses across 20 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. First canonically at Genesis 32:2, it enters the text early. Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
army
Modern gloss
camp
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H4264 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 →

190
distinct verses
The word appears in 190 distinct verses.
20 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 20 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 32:2
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 32:2.
Zechariah 14:15
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Zechariah 14:15.
#220
by frequency
Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 220 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 190 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 90 · 47%
  • Historical 90 · 47%
  • Wisdom 4 · 2%
  • Prophets 6 · 3%

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 190 distinct verses.

  • Torah (Pentateuch) 90 verses · 47%
  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 84 verses · 44%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 16 verses · 8%

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: Camp 121×, Host 42×, Camps 6×
  • American Standard Version: Camp 128×, Host 23×, Camps 6×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Camp 139×, Army 20×, Camps 11×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Camp 139×, Camp of 41×, Camps 15×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H4264 across 216 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Camp” 121×
  • “Host” 42×
  • “Camps” 6×
  • “All the host” 5×
  • “Tents” 4×
  • “Company” 3×
  • “All his host” 2×
  • “Armies” 2×
  • “Bands” 2×
  • “They and all their hosts” 2×
  • “Throughout the camp” 2×

Plus 25 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 H4264 across 215 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Camp” 128×
  • “Host” 23×
  • “Camps” 6×
  • “All the host” 5×
  • “Company” 4×
  • “All his host” 2×
  • “Companies” 2×
  • “Him” 2×
  • “Hosts” 2×
  • “Midst of the camp” 2×
  • “Part of the camp” 2×
  • “They and all their hosts” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 31 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 H4264 across 206 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Camp” 139×
  • “Army” 20×
  • “Camps” 11×
  • “Are to camp” 3×
  • “Armies” 3×
  • “Battle” 3×
  • “Forces” 3×
  • “Company” 2×
  • “Dwelling” 2×

Plus 20 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 9 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H4264 across 218 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Camp” 139×
  • “Camp of” 41×
  • “Camps” 15×
  • “Army” 3×
  • “Now the camp of” 2×

Plus 18 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.


7 senses and sub-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 7 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. camp, place of encampment:
    • a. of caravan of travellers Gn 32:22 (J), especially of Isr. at Exod. and in wildern. Ex 16:13(×2) 19:16, 17 (all P; disting. from עַם); שַׁעַר מ׳ Ex 32:26 (JE); especially מִחוּץ המ׳ in connexion with uncleanness, etc., Ex 29:14; Lv 4:12 (P) + often, of position of tent of meeting Ex 33:7(×2) (JE), contr. Nu 2:17 (P), where of encampments of several tribes, cf. 1:52; 2:3; 10:2, 5, 6, 25 etc., (all P), already passing over to 3 (cf. הַחֹנִים 10:5, 6); e.g. Genesis 32:22
    • b. specif. of camp of Levites, surrounding tabernacle, so that P can say אֹהֶל־מוֹעֵד מַחֲנֵה הַלְוִיִם Nu 2:17; and so (late) of temple הַשֹּׁעֲרִים לְמַחֲנוֹת בְּנֵי לֵוִי 1 Ch 9:18, as well as שַׁעֲרֵי מַחֲנוֹת י׳ 2 Ch 31:2; pl. (opp. מִבְצָרִים = fortresses) Nu 13:19. e.g. Numbers 2:17
  • 2. camp of armed host Jos 6:11(×2), 14 (JE), 1 S 4:3, 5, 6(×2), 7; 17:53; 2 K 7:16 etc. e.g. Joshua 6:11
  • 3.
    • a. those who encamp Nu 10:5, 6; 1 Ch 11:5 ψ 27:3 (all c. vb. חנה), cf. (prob.) Is 37:36 = 2 K 19:35, etc. e.g. Numbers 10:5
    • b. company, body of people; people and beasts Gn 32:8, 9(×2), 11; 33:8, funeral company of Jacob Gn 50:9; of Isr. on march Ex 14:19, 20 cf. Nu 10:5, 6. e.g. Genesis 32:8
    • c. army, host Jos 8:13; 10:5; 11:4 Ju 4:15, 16(×2) 7:1, 8; 8:10(×2), 11(×2) 12 1 S 17:1, 46 2 K 3:9 even while in the thick of the fight; 1 K 22:34 = 2 Ch 18:33 etc. e.g. Joshua 8:13

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. Gn 33:8 + 16 times and f. ψ 27:3; 1 Ch 11:15 (on Gn 32:9a v. Di) encampment, camp—abs. מ׳ Gn 32:9(×2) + 126 times (incl. Ez 1:24, del. Co); cstr. מַחֲנֵה Gn 32:3 + 56 times; sf. מַחֲנֵהוּ Nu 1:52 + 5 times; מַחֲנֶיךָ Dt 23:15; 29:10, מַחֲנֶךָ Dt 23:15, מַחֲנֵיכֶם Am 4:10, מַחֲנֵיהֶם Nu 5:3 Ju 8:10 (cf. infr., and on form of noun c. sf. vid. Ges§ 93, 3, R 3); pl. abs. מַחֲנוֹת Gn 32:8 + 9 times; cstr. 1 Ch 9:18 + 2 times, מַחֲנִים Nu 13:19; sf. (appar. pl. n.) מַחֲנֵיהֶם Jos 10:4 + 5 times;—on du. v. מ׳ n.pr. infr.

— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.

Derived from חנה (chânâh) (H2583) — to encamp.

Part of speech: Noun Masculine TWOT: 690c


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.

מַחֲנֶה

  • camp, esp. the encampment of the Israelites in the desert (v. Num. II); transferred to the limits of graded sacredness in Jerusalem (v. מְחִיצָה II). Sifré Num. 1 מַחְנֵה ישראל the camp of the Israelites (from the gate of Jerusalem to the Temple mount); מ׳ לויה the camp of the attendants (priests and Levites, from the Temple mount to the Temple court); מ׳ שכינה the camp of the Divine Majesty (from the entrance of the court and further). Ib. מ׳ ארון the camp of the Ark in the desert (= מ׳ לויה); Y. Sot. VIII, 22ᵇ bot.; a. fr.—Pl. מַחֲנוֹת. Sifré l. c. שלש מ׳ הן there are three camps of graded sacredness (= מְחִיצוֹת). e.g. Numbers 2:25

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 78 distinct written forms H4264 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
מַחֲנֵ֣ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct Exodus 14:19 18
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֔ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 2:14 13
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֑ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 2:15 12
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶֽה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 23:10 12
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֖ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Genesis 50:9 11
מַחֲנֵ֥ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct Exodus 14:24 10
לַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֑ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 23:12 9
לַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֔ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 23:10 8
בְּ/מַחֲנֵ֣ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct 1 Chronicles 11:18 7
לַֽ/מַּחֲנֶֽה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Exodus 16:13 7
בַּֽ/מַּחֲנֶֽה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Exodus 19:16 6
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶה֙ Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute 1 Samuel 11:11 5
לַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֖ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Leviticus 13:46 5
בַּֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֑ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Judges 7:9 4
בַּֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֔ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Exodus 32:27 4
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֗ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute 2 Kings 7:8 4
הַ/מַּחֲנֶ֥ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Genesis 32:8 3
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֛ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Judges 4:15 3
לְ/מַחֲנֵ֣ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct Numbers 2:9 3
מַֽחֲנֵי/הֶם֙ Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Construct 1 Samuel 17:1 3
מַחֲנֵ֑/הוּ Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct 2 Chronicles 14:13 3
מַחֲנֵ֤ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 17:46 3
בַּֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֖ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute 1 Samuel 14:21 2
הַֽ/מַּחֲנ֔וֹת Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute Numbers 10:5 2
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֜ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Judges 7:22 2
וּ/מַחֲנֵ֣ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct 1 Chronicles 11:15 2
מִ/מַּחֲנֵ֥ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 13:17 2
מַחֲנֵ֧ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct Numbers 2:10 2
מַחֲנֽוֹת Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute Genesis 32:7 2
בַ/מַּחֲנֶ֤ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute 1 Samuel 14:15 1
בַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֔ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute 1 Samuel 28:1 1
בְּ/מַחֲנֵ֖ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct 2 Chronicles 32:21 1
בְּ/מַחֲנֵ֥ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct 2 Samuel 5:24 1
בְּ/מַחֲנֵה Noun, Proper Judges 13:25 1
בַּ/מַּחֲנ֣וֹת Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute Zechariah 14:15 1
בַּֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֡ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Numbers 11:26 1
בַּֽ/מַּחֲנֶה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Exodus 32:17 1
בַּֽ/מַּחֲנֶה֮ Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Exodus 36:6 1
בַּֽ/מַּחֲנֶֽה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Numbers 11:26 1
הַ/בְּ/מַֽחֲנִ֖ים Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute Numbers 13:19 1
הַ/מַּחֲנֶ֧ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Joshua 10:21 1
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 23:11 1
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶה֒ Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute 1 Samuel 4:3 1
הַֽ/מַּחֲנָֽיִם Noun, Common, Both, Dual, Absolute Song of Solomon 6:13 1
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֹ֑ת Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute Numbers 2:17 1
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֹ֖ת Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute Numbers 10:25 1
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֹת֙ Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute Numbers 2:32 1
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֽוֹת Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Absolute Numbers 10:2 1
הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶה֒ Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Numbers 4:15 1
וְ/הַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֖ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Judges 8:11 1
וּ/מַחֲנֵ֤ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct Judges 7:1 1
וּ/מַחֲנֵי/הֶ֤ם Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Construct Judges 8:10 1
כְּ/מַחֲנֵ֥ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct 1 Chronicles 12:22 1
לְ/מַ֣חֲנֵה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct Numbers 2:31 1
לְ/מַחֲנ֖וֹת Noun, Common, Both, Plural, Construct 1 Chronicles 9:18 1
לְ/מַחֲנֵ֥ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct Joshua 6:23 1
לְ/מַחֲנֶ֥ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute 1 Chronicles 12:22 1
לַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֗ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Exodus 33:7 1
לַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֛ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute 2 Kings 3:9 1
לַֽ/מַּחֲנֶ֜ה Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute Leviticus 4:12 1

The 60 most common forms are shown; 18 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.


Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4264, 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.

Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 9 — not the complete family. 3 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 183 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 190 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.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

Comparing translations? Open the Compare panel on any verse page to stack up to four side by side.