מַכְאוֹב
pain
‘pain’ is one of 2 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
- 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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 8 times (50%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 3 times (19%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 3 times (19%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 2 times (13%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 16 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H4341 appears — 15 distinct verses across 8 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.
Exodus 1 verse
2 Chronicles 1 verse
Job 1 verse
Psalms 3 verses
- Psalms 32:10 מַכְאוֹבִ֗ים n c mp Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, But he who trusts in Yahweh, loving kindness shall surround him.
- Psalms 38:17 וּ/מַכְאוֹבִ֖/י conj + n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cs For I am ready to fall. My pain is continually before me.
- Psalms 69:26 מַכְא֖וֹב n c ms cs For they persecute him whom you have wounded. They tell of the sorrow of those whom you have hurt.
Ecclesiastes 2 verses
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 53:3 מַכְאֹב֖וֹת n c mp He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we didn't respect him.
- Isaiah 53:4 וּ/מַכְאֹבֵ֖י/נוּ conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 1cp Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
Jeremiah 3 verses
- Jeremiah 30:15 מַכְאֹבֵ֑/ךְ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2fs Why cry you for your hurt? your pain is incurable: for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased, I have done these things to you.
- Jeremiah 45:3 מַכְאֹבִ֑/י n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cs You did say, Woe is me now! for Yahweh has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.
- Jeremiah 51:8 לְ/מַכְאוֹבָ֔/הּ prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3fs Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.
Lamentations 2 verses
- Lamentations 1:12 מַכְאוֹב֙ כְּ/מַכְאֹבִ֔/י n c ms prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cs Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, With which Yahweh has afflicted [me] in the day of his fierce anger.
- Lamentations 1:18 מַכְאֹבִ֔/י n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cs Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow: My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
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.
At its core, מכאב (makʼôb) means “pain.” Its English rendering has broadened — “sorrow” classically, “pain” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 15 verses in 8 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Exodus 3:7. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. Dig into 15-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4341 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 →
- 15
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 15 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,752
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,752 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 15 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Psalms 3 verses 20%
- Jeremiah 3 verses 20%
- Ecclesiastes 2 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 15 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 9 verses · 60%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 33%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 7%
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: Sorrow 5×, Sorrows 4×, Pain 2×
- American Standard Version: Pain 4×, Sorrow 4×, Sorrows 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Pain 6×, Sorrows 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Pain 5×, Sorrows 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4341 across 16 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4341 across 16 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4341 across 16 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4341 across 13 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.
Senses in BDB
The 2 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.
- also feminine ( Isa 53:3 ) mak'obah
- pain, sorrow
Word origin
Derived from כאב (kâʼab) (H3510) — to be in pain.
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.
כָּאֵב
- (b. h.) to be heavy, to feel pain. Y. Sabb. IX, 12ᵃ ib. XIX, 17ᵃ bot. (ref. to Gen. XXXIV, 25) בהיותו כּוֹאֵב כל איבריהם כּוֹאֲבִים עליהם … it does not say, ‘when it (the wound) was painful’, but …, which intimates that all their limbs pained them. e.g. Genesis 34:25
- to cause pain, grief. Ex. R. s. 3 (ref. to Ex. III, 7) ידעתי … להַכְאִיבֵנִי וכ׳ I know how much they will grieve me &c. Pirké d’R. El. ch. XII שלא להַכְאִיבוֹ so as to make him feel no pain. Midr. Till. to Ps. XCIV (ref. to Prov. III, 12) א"ת וּכְאָב אלא וּכְאֵב … שמַכְאִיבוֹ read not ukh’ab (and like a father) but ukh’eb (and pain), when He sends him pain. e.g. Exodus 3:7
כְּאֵב I
- Targ. Prov. XIV, 13.—Part. כָּאֵב, כָּאֵיב, כָּיֵב. Targ. Job XIV, 22. Targ. Ps. LXIX, 30; a. fr.—Targ. Jer. IV, 19 כֵּיבִין (ed. Lag. כָּיְיבָן).—B. Kam. 46ᵇ מאן דכאיב ליה כאיבא וכ׳ Ms. F. (v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note, Ms. H. כיבא) he who feels sick, goes to the physician. Ib. 85ᵇ הוה כ׳ ליה מידי וסליק ואיתיב וכ׳ Ms. M. (ed. ואייתי) he had a sore and it was going away, and one put on a corrodent drug for him &c., v. חֲוַר. Gitt. 68ᵇ כָּיֵיב; a. fr.—B. Kam. 35ᵃ כיבין, v. חִינְכֵי.
- to cause pain, wound, grieve. Lam. R. to II, 1 translating יעיב, ib.) איך כ׳ וכ׳ how did the Lord wound &c., v. כֵּיבָא.
כְּאֵב II
- preced.)
- 1. heaviness, pain. Ber. 55ᵃ כ׳ לב heaviness of heart (fretfulness). Gen. R. s. 67, end כ׳ על כ׳ grief added to grief; a. e.
- 2. grievous offence. Deut. R. s. 3 (ref. to מכאביו, Ex. III, 7) יודע אני מה כ׳ וכ׳ I know what grievous offence they are going to commit, v. כָּאֵב. e.g. Exodus 3:7
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 16 distinct written forms H4341 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 H4341, 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 → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 15 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
- Exodus 3:7
- 2 Chronicles 6:29
- Job 33:19
- Psalms 32:10
- Ecclesiastes 1:18
- Isaiah 53:3
- Jeremiah 30:15
- Lamentations 1:12
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.
