מִכְתָּב
writing
‘writing’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-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
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 6 times (67%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 3 times (33%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 9 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H4385 appears — 8 distinct verses across 5 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 2 verses
- Exodus 32:16 וְ/הַ/מִּכְתָּ֗ב מִכְתַּ֤ב conj + ptcl def.art + n c ms n c ms cs The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tables.
- Exodus 39:30 מִכְתַּב֙ n c ms cs They made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote on it a writing, like the engravings of a signet: "HOLY TO YAHWEH."
Deuteronomy 1 verse
2 Chronicles 3 verses
- 2 Chronicles 21:12 מִכְתָּ֔ב n c ms There came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus says Yahweh, the God of David your father, Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah,
- 2 Chronicles 35:4 וּ/בְ/מִכְתַּ֖ב conj + prep + n c ms cs Prepare yourselves after your fathers' houses by your divisions, according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon his son.
- 2 Chronicles 36:22 בְּ/מִכְתָּ֖ב prep + n c ms Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and [put it] also in writing, saying,
Ezra 1 verse
Isaiah 1 verse
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.
“writing” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun מכתב (miktâb). Carrying more than one sense, it rewards its full sense range. With 8 verses in 5 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in 2 Chronicles, which alone accounts for 38% of its uses. Scripture first uses it in Exodus 32:16. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4385 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,481
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,481 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 8 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 2 Chronicles 3 verses 38%
- Exodus 2 verses 25%
- Deuteronomy 1 verse 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 8 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 50%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 38%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 13%
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: Writing 5×, Put it also in writing 2×
- American Standard Version: Writing 5×, Put it also in writing 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Writing 3×, Put it in writing 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Writing 5×, Writing of 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4385 across 9 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4385 across 9 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4385 across 9 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4385 across 10 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 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 3 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. = hand-writing וְהַמִּכְתָּב מִכְתַּב אֱלֹהִים הוּא Ex 32:16. e.g. Exodus 32:16
- 2. = thing written, Ex 39:30 (acc. cogn. c. כָּתַב), Dt 10:4; specif. a royal enactment or edict (= כְּתָב 4), 2 Ch 35:4 (‖ כְּתָב), 36:22 = Ezr 1:1; a prophetic writing 2 Ch 21:12. e.g. Exodus 39:30
- 3. in a title, מ׳ לְחִזְקִיָּהוּ Is 38:9 Writing of Hezekiah. e.g. Isaiah 38:9
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. 2 Ch 21:12 writing;—abs. מ׳ Dt 10:4 + 5 times; cstr. מִכְתַּב Ex 32:16 + 2 times;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כתב (kâthab) (H3789) — to write.
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.
מִכְתָּב
- writ, letter. Ab. V, 6, a. e. הכתב והמ׳, v. כְּתָב.—Pl. מִכְתָּבִים, מִכְתָּבִין. Tosef. Sabb. XVII (XVIII), 8 המ׳ שבכרכים (ed. Zuck. המִכְתָּמִין) the public announcements in cities.
מִכְתָּב ²
- Targ. Esth. IX, 27.—Pl. מִכְתָּבִין. Targ. Y. I Deut. XXXII, 8.
מְכַתֵּב
- (preced. wds.) writing tool, pencil, stylus. Kel. XIII, 2; Tosef. Kel. B. Mets. III, 4 מ׳ שנטל הכותב וכ׳ the stylus of which the pointed end is broken off, v. כּוֹתֵב; Y. Sabb. VIII, 11ᵇ bot. Kidd. 21ᵇ; a. e.—Pl. מְכַתְּבִים, מְכַתְּבִין. Y. Taan. VI, 69ᵃ top במ׳ הללו אנו וכ׳ (not במכתובים) with these our pencils we shall march out and stab them; Lam. R. to II, 2; to III, 49.
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 8 distinct written forms H4385 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| בְּ/מִכְתָּ֖ב | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezra 1:1 | 2 |
| וְ/הַ/מִּכְתָּ֗ב | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 32:16 | 1 |
| וּ/בְ/מִכְתַּ֖ב | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | 2 Chronicles 35:4 | 1 |
| כַּ/מִּכְתָּ֣ב | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Deuteronomy 10:4 | 1 |
| מִכְתַּ֤ב | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 32:16 | 1 |
| מִכְתַּב֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 39:30 | 1 |
| מִכְתָּ֔ב | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 21:12 | 1 |
| מִכְתָּ֖ב | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 38:9 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4385, 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 7 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
