אֱלָהּ
God
‘God’ 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 Construct-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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
23 verses where H426 appears in the Construct state in the Book of Daniel. 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.
Daniel
- Daniel 2:18 אֱלָ֣הּ n c ms cs that they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his companions should nor perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
- Daniel 2:19 לֶ/אֱלָ֥הּ ptcl do + n c ms cs Then was the secret revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.
- Daniel 2:23 אֱלָ֣הּ n c ms cs I thank you, and praise you, you God of my fathers, who have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we desired of you; for you have made known to us the king's matter.
- Daniel 2:37 אֱלָ֣הּ n c ms cs You, O king, are king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory;
- Daniel 2:44 אֱלָ֨הּ n c ms cs In the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty of it be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
- Daniel 2:47 אֱלָהֲ/כ֗וֹן אֱלָ֧הּ אֱלָהִ֛ין n c ms cs + sfx pers 2mp n c ms cs n c mp The king answered to Daniel, and said, Of a truth your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing you have been able to reveal this secret.
- Daniel 3:12 ל/אלהי/ך לֵֽ/אלָהָ/ךְ֙ prep + n c mp cs + sfx pers 2ms prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; these men, O king, have not regarded you: they don't serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up.
- Daniel 3:14 לֵֽ/אלָהַ֗/י prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cs Nebuchadnezzar answered them, Is it on purpose, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you don't serve my god, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
- Daniel 3:17 אֱלָהַ֨/נָא֙ n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cp If it be [so], our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.
- Daniel 3:18 ל/אלהי/ך לֵֽ/אלָהָ/ךְ֙ prep + n c mp cs + sfx pers 2ms prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up.
- Daniel 3:28 אֱלָהֲ/הוֹן֙ אֱלָ֔הּ לֵ/אלָֽהֲ/הֽוֹן n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp n c ms ptcl do + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel, and delivered his servants who trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and have yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.
- Daniel 3:29 אֱלָהֲ/ה֗וֹן אֱלָ֣ה n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp n c ms Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak anything evil against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill; because there is no other god who is able to deliver after this sort.
- Daniel 4:8 אֱלָהִ֔/י אֱלָהִ֥ין n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cs n c mp But at the last Daniel came in before me, whose name was Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods: and I told the dream before him, [saying],
- Daniel 5:4 לֵֽ/אלָהֵ֞י ptcl do + n c mp cs They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
- Daniel 5:23 וְ/לֵֽ/אלָהֵ֣י וְ/לֵֽ/אלָהָ֞/א conj + prep + n c mp cs conj + prep + n c ms det + ptcl def.art but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which don't see, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified.
- Daniel 6:5 אֱלָהֵֽ/הּ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.
- Daniel 6:10 אֱלָהֵ֔/הּ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled on his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did before.
- Daniel 6:11 אֱלָהֵֽ/הּ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God.
- Daniel 6:16 אֱלָהָ֗/ךְ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. [Now] the king spoke and said to Daniel, Your God whom you serve continually, he will deliver you.
- Daniel 6:20 אֱלָהָ֣/א אֱלָהָ֗/ךְ n c ms det + ptcl def.art n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms When he came near to the den to Daniel, he cried with a lamentable voice; the king spoke and said to Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God, whom you serve continually, able to deliver you from the lions?
- Daniel 6:22 אֱלָהִ֞/י n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cs My God has sent his angel, and has shut the lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me; because as before him innocence was found in me; and also before you, O king, have I done no hurt.
- Daniel 6:23 בֵּ/אלָהֵֽ/הּ prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms Then was the king exceeding glad, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.
- Daniel 6:26 אֱלָהֵ֣/הּ אֱלָהָ֣/א n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms n c ms det + ptcl def.art I make a decree, that in all the dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel; for he is the living God, and steadfast forever, His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed; and his dominion shall be even to the end.
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 אלה centers on the idea of “God.” The word gravitates to Daniel (53%), then Ezra and Jeremiah. It turns up in 78 verses across 3 books, a moderately common footprint. First canonically at Ezra 4:24, it enters the text early. Dig into 78-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H426 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 →
- 78
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 78 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #432
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 432 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 78 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 78 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 77 verses · 99%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 1%
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: God 73×, Gods 14×
- American Standard Version: God 72×, Gods 10×
- Berean Standard Bible: God 73×, Gods 15×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: God 62×, God of 17×, Gods 13×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H426 across 95 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 H426 across 95 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 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 H426 across 94 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 H426 across 110 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 BDB
The 3 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- god, God
- god, heathen deity
- God (of Israel)
Word origin
אֱלָהּ 94 n.m. god, God
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אלוה (ʼĕlôwahh) (H433) — God.
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 52 distinct written forms H426 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 H426, 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
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 → 2 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 (God). 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
(A.S. and Dutch God; Dan. Gud; Ger. Gott), the name of the Divine Being. It is the rendering (1) of the Hebrew 'El, from a word meaning to be strong; (2) of 'Eloah_, plural _'Elohim. The singular form, Eloah, is used only in poetry. The plural form is more commonly used in all parts of the Bible, The Hebrew word Jehovah (q.v.), the only other word generally employed to denote the Supreme Being, is uniformly rendered in the Authorized Version by "LORD," printed in small capitals. The existence of God is taken for granted in the Bible. There is nowhere any argument to prove it. He who disbelieves this truth is spoken of as one devoid of understanding (Ps. 14:1).
The arguments generally adduced by theologians in proof of the being of God are:
(1.) The a priori argument, which is the testimony afforded by reason.
(2.) The a posteriori argument, by which we proceed logically from the facts of experience to causes. These arguments are,
(a) The cosmological, by which it is proved that there must be a First Cause of all things, for every effect must have a cause.
(b) The teleological, or the argument from design. We see everywhere the operations of an intelligent Cause in nature.
(c) The moral argument, called also the anthropological argument, based on the moral consciousness and the history of mankind, which exhibits a moral order and purpose which can only be explained on the supposition of the existence of God. Conscience and human history testify that "verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth."
The attributes of God are set forth in order by Moses in Ex. 34:6, 7. (see also Deut. 6:4; 10:17; Num. 16:22; Ex. 15:11; 33:19; Isa. 44:6; Hab. 3:6; Ps. 102:26; Job 34:12.) They are also systematically classified in Rev. 5:12 and 7:12.
God's attributes are spoken of by some as absolute, i.e., such as belong to his essence as Jehovah, Jah, etc.; and relative, i.e., such as are ascribed to him with relation to his creatures. Others distinguish them into communicable, i.e., those which can be imparted in degree to his creatures: goodness, holiness, wisdom, etc.; and incommunicable, which cannot be so imparted: independence, immutability, immensity, and eternity. They are by some also divided into natural attributes, eternity, immensity, etc.; and moral, holiness, goodness, etc.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(good). Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures two chief names are used for the one true divine Being--ELOHIM, commonly translated God in our version, and Jehovah, translated Lord . Elohim is the plural of Eloah (in Arabic Allah); it is often used in the short form EL (a word signifying strength, as in EL-SHADDAI, God Almighty, the name by which God was specially known to the patriarchs. (Genesis 17:1; 28:3; Exodus 6:3) The etymology is uncertain, but it is generally agreed that the primary idea is that of strength, power of effect, and that it properly describes God in that character in which he is exhibited to all men in his works, as the creator, sustainer and supreme governor of the world. The plural form of Elohim has given rise to much discussion. The fanciful idea that it referred to the trinity of persons in the Godhead hardly finds now a supporter among scholars. It is either what grammarians call the plural of majesty, or it denotes the fullness of divine strength, the sum of the powers displayed by God. Jehovah denotes specifically the one true God, whose people the Jews were, and who made them the guardians of his truth. The name is never applied to a false god, nor to any other being except one, the ANGEL-JEHOVAH who is thereby marked as one with God, and who appears again in the New Covenant as "God manifested in the flesh." Thus much is clear; but all else is beset with difficulties. At a time too early to be traced, the Jews abstained from pronouncing the name, for fear of its irreverent use. The custom is said to have been founded on a strained interpretation of (Leviticus 24:16) and the phrase there used, "THE NAME" (Shema), is substituted by the rabbis for the unutterable word. In reading the Scriptures they substituted for it the word ADONAI (Lord), from the translation of which by Kurios in the LXX., followed by the Vulgate, which uses Dominus, we have the Lord of our version. The substitution of the word Lord is most unhappy, for it in no way represents the meaning of the sacred name. The key to the meaning of the name is unquestionably given in God's revelation of himself to Moses by the phrase "I AM THAT I AM," (Exodus 3:14; 6:3) We must connect the name Jehovah with the Hebrew substantive verb to be, with the inference that it expresses the essential, eternal, unchangeable being of Jehovah. But more, it is not the expression only, or chiefly, of an absolute truth: it is a practical revelation of God, in his essential, unchangeable relation to this chosen people, the basis of his covenant.
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 75 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 78 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.
