מִכְשׁוֹל
stumbling block
‘stumbling block’ is one of 3 main senses 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
- 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
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H4383 appears in the Book of Psalms — 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.
Psalms
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.
מכשול — transliterated mikshôwl — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “stumbling block.” Its uses cluster heavily in Ezekiel (57% of all occurrences). Spanning 14 verses in 6 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. It is not a single-sense word — see its full sense range. The King James Version usually renders it “stumblingblock,” while modern versions prefer “stumbling block” (Berean Standard Bible) — see the renderings breakdown. See the sense tree, 14-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4383 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 →
- 14
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 14 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,910
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,910 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 14 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 14 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 12 verses · 86%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 7%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 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: Stumblingblock 6×
- American Standard Version: Stumblingblock 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Stumbling block 6×, Stumbling blocks 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Stumbling block 7×, Stumbling blocks 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4383 across 14 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 H4383 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 H4383 across 14 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4383 across 14 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.
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 6 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. stumbling, צוּר מ׳ Is 8:14 (fig.) a rock of stumbling (i.e. over which one stumbles); lit. הַרְבֵּה הַמִּכְשֹׁלִים Ez 21:20 an abundance of stumblings, falls (si vera l.; 𝔊 οἱ ἀσθενοῦντες, apar. reading pt., cf. Sm; so Co Da (as a possibility), i.e. מֻכְשָׁלִים Hoph. Pt. of כשׁל = those who have stumbled or been overthrown). e.g. Isaiah 8:14
- 2. means, or occasion of stumbling, stumbling-block;
- a. lit. Lv 19:14. e.g. Leviticus 19:14
- b. fig. of misfortune, calamity ψ 119:165; in divine judgment Je 6:21 Ez 3:20, as a hindrance to restoration of people Is 57:14. e.g. Psalms 119:165
- c. in ethical sense מ׳ עֲוֹנָם Ez 7:19 a stumbling-block of (i.e. occasioning) their iniquity, so 14:3, 4, 7; 18:30; 44:12 (mostly with ref. to idols). e.g. Ezekiel 7:19
- d. מ׳ לֵב 1 S 25:31 a stumbling-block of heart i.e. ground for remorse. e.g. 1 Samuel 25:31
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. Je 6:21 a stumbling, means or occasion of stumbling, stumbling-block;—מ׳ abs. Is 8:14 + 3 times, מִכְשֹׁל Lv 19:14; cstr. מִכְשׁוֹל 1 S 25:31 + 6 times Ez; pl. מִכְשֹׁלִים Je 6:21 + Ez 21:20 MT (Co al. מֻכְשָׁלִים, v. infr.);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כשל (kâshal) (H3782) — to stumble.
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.
מִכְשׁוֹל
- hindrance. Succ. 52ᵃ ישעיה קראו מ׳ Isaiah called the evil inclination ‘hindrance’ (Is. LVII, 14). e.g. Isaiah 57:14
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 13 distinct written forms H4383 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וּ/מִכְשׁ֣וֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 14:3 | 2 |
| הַ/מִּכְשֹׁלִ֔ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Ezekiel 21:15 | 1 |
| וּ/לְ/מִכְשׁ֨וֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | 1 Samuel 25:31 | 1 |
| וּ/מִכְשׁ֤וֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 14:4 | 1 |
| לְ/מִכְשׁ֖וֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 18:30 | 1 |
| לְ/מִכְשׁ֣וֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 44:12 | 1 |
| מִכְשׁ֖וֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 57:14 | 1 |
| מִכְשׁ֛וֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 3:20 | 1 |
| מִכְשׁ֜וֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 8:14 | 1 |
| מִכְשׁ֥וֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 7:19 | 1 |
| מִכְשֹׁ֑ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Leviticus 19:14 | 1 |
| מִכְשֹׁלִ֑ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Jeremiah 6:21 | 1 |
| מִכְשֽׁוֹל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 119:165 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4383, 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 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 14 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.
