מִיכָאֵל
Michael
BDB lists 10 entries for ‘Michael’ 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 H4317 appears in the Book of Numbers — 1 distinct verse. 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.
Numbers
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.
מיכאל (Mîykâʼêl) is a Hebrew name most often rendered “Michael.” 1 Chronicles dominates its distribution — 7 of 13 verses. Spanning 13 verses in 5 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Numbers 13:13. For the data behind this summary, explore 13-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4317 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 →
- 13
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 13 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,001
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,001 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 13 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Chronicles 7 verses 54%
- Daniel 3 verses 23%
- Numbers 1 verse 8%
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 13 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 12 verses · 92%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 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: Michael 9×
- American Standard Version: Michael 10×
- Berean Standard Bible: Michael 13×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Michael 13×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4317 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H4317 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H4317 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4317 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
11 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 11 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. Nu 13:13 (P). e.g. Numbers 13:13
- 2. 1 Ch 5:13. e.g. 1 Chronicles 5:13
- 3. 5:14. e.g. 1 Chronicles 5:14
- 4. 6:25. e.g. 1 Chronicles 6:25
- 5. 7:3. e.g. 1 Chronicles 7:3
- 6. 8:16. e.g. 1 Chronicles 8:16
- 7. 12:21. e.g. 1 Chronicles 12:21
- 8. 27:18. e.g. 1 Chronicles 27:18
- 9. 2 Ch 21:2. e.g. 2 Chronicles 21:2
- 10. Ezr 8:8. e.g. Ezra 8:8
- 11. the ‘prince,’ or patron-angel, of Israel, Dn 10:13, 21; 12:1 (cf. Jude 9 Rev 12:7; LevyNHWB iii, 100). e.g. Daniel 10:13
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
† מִיכָאֵל n.pr.m. Michael, 𝔊 Μειχαηλ, Μιχαηλ (Who is like God? cf. מִיכָיָהוּ, and Assyrian proper names, as Mannu-kî-Rammân, ‘Who is like Rammân?’ Mannu-kî-ilu-rabû, ‘Who is like the great God?’ DlProl. 210; HWB 419; SchrCOT 478; cf. CookAramaic Gloss. 74):—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from מי (mîy) (H4310) — who.
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.
מִיכָאֵל
- (b. h.) Michael, name of an angel. Targ. Job XXV, 2 (sec. vers.). Targ. Ps. CXXXVII, 7; a. e.—Ḥag. 12ᵇ מ׳ השר הגדול M., the great chief; Men. 110ᵃ. Y. Ber. IX, 13ᵃ bot. one in distress לא יצווח לא למ׳ וכ׳ cries not to M. nor to Gabriel, but &c.—Num. R. s. 2; Pesik. R. s. 46 מי כמוך ואין כאל הרי מ׳ Michael is a combination of mi (Ex. XV, 11) and kaël (Deut. XXXIII, 26); a. fr. e.g. Exodus 15:11
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 11 distinct written forms H4317 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| מִֽיכָאֵ֡ל | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 5:13 | 2 |
| מִיכָאֵֽל | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 27:18 | 2 |
| וּ/מִיכָאֵ֖ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Chronicles 21:2 | 1 |
| וּ/מִיכָאֵ֣ל | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 12:20 | 1 |
| וּ/מִיכָאֵ֧ל | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 8:16 | 1 |
| מִֽיכָאֵ֑ל | Noun, Proper | Ezra 8:8 | 1 |
| מִֽיכָאֵ֗ל | Noun, Proper | Daniel 10:13 | 1 |
| מִֽיכָאֵ֜ל | Noun, Proper | Daniel 12:1 | 1 |
| מִיכָאֵ֖ל | Noun, Proper | Daniel 10:21 | 1 |
| מִיכָאֵ֛ל | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 5:14 | 1 |
| מִיכָאֵ֥ל | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 6:40 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4317, 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 → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. 3 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 (Michael). 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
Who is like God? (1.) The title given to one of the chief angels (Dan. 10:13, 21; 12:1). He had special charge of Israel as a nation. He disputed with Satan (Jude 1:9) about the body of Moses. He is also represented as warning against "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world" (Rev. 12:7-9).
(2.) The father of Sethur, the spy selected to represent Asher (Num. 13:13).
(3.) 1 Chr. 7:3, a chief of the tribe of Issachar.
(4.) 1 Chr. 8:16, a Benjamite.
(5.) A chief Gadite in Bashan (1 Chr. 5:13).
(6.) A Manassite, "a captain of thousands" who joined David at Ziklag (1 Chr. 12:20).
(7.) A Gershonite Levite (1 Chr. 6:40).
(8.) The father of Omri (1 Chr. 27:18).
(9.) One of the sons of king Jehoshaphat (2 Chr. 21:2, 4). He was murdered by his brother Jehoram.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(who is like God?).
+ An Asherite, father of Sethur, one of the twelve spies. (Numbers 13:13) + One of the Gadites who settled in the land of Bashan. (1 Chronicles 5:13) + Another Gadite, ancestor of Abihail. (1 Chronicles 5:14) + A Gershionite Levite, ancestor of Asaph. (1 Chronicles 6:40) + One of the five sons of Izrahiah, of the tribe of Issachar. (1 Chronicles 7:3) + A Benjamite of the sons of Beriah. (1 Chronicles 8:16) + One of the captains of the "thousands" of Manasseh who joined David at Ziklag. (1 Chronicles 12:20) + The father or ancestor of Omri, chief of the tribe of Issachar in the reign of David. (1 Chronicles 27:18) + One of the sons of Jehoshaphat who were murdered by their elder brother, Jehoram. (2 Chronicles 21:2,4) + The father or ancestor of Zebadiah, of the sons of Shephatiah. (Ezra 8:8) + "One," or "the first, of the chief princes" or archangels, (Daniel 10:21) as the "prince" of Israel, and in ch. (Daniel 12:1) as "the great prince which standeth" in time conflict "for the children of thy people."
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 13 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.
