מִלָּה
word
‘word’ 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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Particle, Definite Article 15 times (63%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 4 times (17%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (8%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 2 times (8%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct 1 time (4%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 24 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H4406 appears — 22 distinct verses across 1 book. 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 22 verses
- Daniel 2:5 מִלְּתָ֖/א n c fs det + ptcl def.art The king answered the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if you don't make known to me the dream and the interpretation of it, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.
- Daniel 2:8 מִלְּתָֽ/א n c fs det + ptcl def.art The king answered, I know of a certainty that you would gain time, because you see the thing is gone from me.
- Daniel 2:9 וּ/מִלָּ֨ה conj + n c fs But if you don't make known to me the dream, there is but one law for you; for you have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, until the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me the interpretation of it.
- Daniel 2:10 מִלַּ֣ת מִלָּ֤ה n c fs cs n c fs The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man on the earth who can show the king's matter, because no king, lord, or ruler, has asked such a thing of any magician, or enchanter, or Chaldean.
- Daniel 2:11 וּ/מִלְּתָ֨/א conj + n c fs det + ptcl def.art It is a rare thing that the king requires, and there is no other who can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.
- Daniel 2:15 מִלְּתָ֔/א n c fs det + ptcl def.art he answered Arioch the king's captain, Why is the decree so urgent from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.
- Daniel 2:17 מִלְּתָ֥/א n c fs det + ptcl def.art Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions:
- Daniel 2:23 מִלַּ֥ת n c fs 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 3:22 מִלַּ֤ת n c fs cs Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
- Daniel 3:28 וּ/מִלַּ֤ת conj + n c fs cs 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 4:31 מִלְּתָ/א֙ n c fs det + ptcl def.art While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from the sky, [saying], O king Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom is departed from you:
- Daniel 4:33 מִלְּתָ/א֮ n c fs det + ptcl def.art The same hour was the thing fulfilled on Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and ate grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky, until his hair was grown like eagles' [feathers], and his nails like birds' [claws].
- Daniel 5:10 מִלֵּ֤י n c fp cs [Now] the queen by reason of the words of the king and his lords came into the banquet house: the queen spoke and said, O king, live forever; don't let your thoughts trouble you, nor let your face be changed.
- Daniel 5:15 מִלְּתָ֖/א n c fs det + ptcl def.art Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known to me the interpretation of it; but they could not show the interpretation of the thing.
- Daniel 5:26 מִלְּתָ֑/א n c fs det + ptcl def.art This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God has numbered your kingdom, and brought it to an end;
- Daniel 6:12 מִלְּתָ֛/א n c fs det + ptcl def.art Then they came near, and spoke before the king concerning the king's interdict: Haven't you signed an interdict, that every man who shall make petition to any god or man within thirty days, save to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which doesn't alter.
- Daniel 6:14 מִלְּתָ֣/א n c fs det + ptcl def.art Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored until the going down of the sun to rescue him.
- Daniel 7:1 מִלִּ֖ין n c fp In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head on his bed: then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters.
- Daniel 7:11 מִלַּיָּ֣/א n c fp det + ptcl def.art I saw at that time because of the voice of the great words which the horn spoke; I saw even until the animal was slain, and its body destroyed, and it was given to be burned with fire.
- Daniel 7:16 מִלַּיָּ֖/א n c fp det + ptcl def.art I came near to one of those who stood by, and asked him the truth concerning all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things.
- Daniel 7:25 וּ/מִלִּ֗ין conj + n c fp He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High; and he shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time.
- Daniel 7:28 מִלְּתָ֑/א וּ/מִלְּתָ֖/א n c fs det + ptcl def.art conj + n c fs det + ptcl def.art Here is the end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts much troubled me, and my face was changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart.
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.
“word” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun מלה (millâh). It clusters heavily in Daniel, which alone accounts for 100% of its uses. With 22 verses in 1 book, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. First canonically at Daniel 2:5, it enters the text early. Lexicons map it across 3 senses. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4406 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 →
- 22
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 22 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,327
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,327 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 22 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Daniel 22 verses 100%
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 22 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 22 verses · 100%
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: Thing 6×, Matter 4×, Words 4×
- American Standard Version: Thing 7×, Words 5×, 's matter 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Matter 3×, Words 3×, Command 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Matter 9×, Words 4×, Word 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4406 across 24 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 H4406 across 24 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4406 across 22 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4406 across 28 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.
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.
- word, thing
- word, utterance, command
- thing, affair, matter
Word origin
n.f. word, speech, utterance (poet., especially Jb; common in Aramaic);—מ׳ ψ 139:4 Jb 30:9; sf. מִלָּתִי Jb 13:17 + 3 times; מִלָּתוֹ 2 S 23:2; pl. מִלִּים Jb 6:26 + 9 times (all Jb); מִלִּין Jb 4:2 + 12 times (all Jb); pl. sf. מִלָּ֑י Jb 19:23 + 4 times; מִלֶּיךָ Jb 4:4 Pr 23:9; מִלֵּיהֶם ψ 19:5;—word בִּלְשׁוֹנִי in (on) my tongue ψ 139:4; word (of י׳), עַל־לְשׁוֹנִי on my tongue 2 S 23:2; שֵׂכֶל מ׳ Pr 23:9; fig. ψ 19:5 (‖ קַוָּם; but read קוֹלָם v. Che crit. n.); elsewhere only Jb (34 times); sg. speech, utterance Jb 13:17; 21:2; 24:25; 29:22; also word = by-word, וָאֱהִי לָהֶם לְמִלָּה Jb 30:9; pl. words, Jb 4:4; 6:26; 8:10: 12:11; 15:3 (‖ דָּבָר), 16:4; 19:2, 23; 32:11, 14; 33:1, 8 (קוֹל מ׳), 34:2, 3, 16 (קוֹל מ׳), 36:2, 4; words of God Jb 23:5; words = speech, speaking, וַעְצֹר בְּמִלִּין מִי יוּכָ֑ל Jb 4:2, cf. 29:9; utter words, וְהֹצֵאתָ מִפִּיךָ מִלִּין 15:13; הִגַּדְתָּ מ׳ 26:4; lay snares for words תְּשִׂימוּן קִנְצֵי לְמִלִּין Jb 18:2, cf. Jb 32:15 הֶעְתִּיקוּ מֵהֶם מִלִּים; מָלֵתִי מִלִּים Jb 32:18 I am full of words, cf. אִם־יֵשׁ־מִלִּין הֲשִׁיבֵנִי 33:32; אֲשִׁיבְךָ מִלִּין Jb 35:4; בִּבְלִי־דַ֫עַת מִלִּין יַכְבִּר 35:16, cf. 38:2.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from מלה (millâh) (H4405) — word.
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.
מִלָּה
- word. Lev. R. s. 16 (prov.) מ׳ בסלע משתוקא בשנים where a word is worth a Sela, silence is worth two; Meg. 18ᵃ (v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 1).—Pl. מִלִּין, מִי. Cant. R. to IV, 4, v. קָצַב; a. e.—Ch. מִלָּה, v. מִילָּא.]
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 22 distinct written forms H4406 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| מִלְּתָ֑/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 5:26 | 2 |
| מִלְּתָ֖/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:5 | 2 |
| וּ/מִלְּתָ֖/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 7:28 | 1 |
| וּ/מִלְּתָ֨/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:11 | 1 |
| וּ/מִלִּ֗ין | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Daniel 7:25 | 1 |
| וּ/מִלַּ֤ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Daniel 3:28 | 1 |
| וּ/מִלָּ֨ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 2:9 | 1 |
| מִלְּתָ/א֙ | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 4:31 | 1 |
| מִלְּתָ/א֮ | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 4:33 | 1 |
| מִלְּתָ֔/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:15 | 1 |
| מִלְּתָ֛/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 6:12 | 1 |
| מִלְּתָ֣/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 6:14 | 1 |
| מִלְּתָ֥/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:17 | 1 |
| מִלְּתָֽ/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:8 | 1 |
| מִלִּ֖ין | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Daniel 7:1 | 1 |
| מִלֵּ֤י | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Daniel 5:10 | 1 |
| מִלַּ֣ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Daniel 2:10 | 1 |
| מִלַּ֤ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Daniel 3:22 | 1 |
| מִלַּ֥ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Daniel 2:23 | 1 |
| מִלַּיָּ֖/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 7:16 | 1 |
| מִלַּיָּ֣/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 7:11 | 1 |
| מִלָּ֤ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 2:10 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 19 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 22 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.
