מִלְחָמָה
battle
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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H4421 appears in the Book of 1 Kings — 21 distinct verses. 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.
1 Kings
- 1 Kings 2:5 מִלְחָמָ֖ה מִלְחָמָ֗ה n c fs n c fs Moreover you know also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, even what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner, and to Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war on his sash that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet.
- 1 Kings 5:3 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֖ה ptcl def.art + n c fs You know how that David my father could not build a house for the name of Yahweh his God for the wars which were about him on every side, until Yahweh put them under the soles of his feet.
- 1 Kings 8:44 לַ/מִּלְחָמָה֙ prep det + n c fs If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to Yahweh toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name;
- 1 Kings 9:22 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֗ה ptcl def.art + n c fs But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondservants; but they were the men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen.
- 1 Kings 12:21 מִלְחָמָ֑ה n c fs When Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen men, who were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.
- 1 Kings 14:30 וּ/מִלְחָמָ֨ה conj + n c fs There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.
- 1 Kings 15:6 וּ/מִלְחָמָ֨ה conj + n c fs Now there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.
- 1 Kings 15:7 וּ/מִלְחָמָ֥ה conj + n c fs The rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, aren't they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? There was war between Abijam and Jeroboam.
- 1 Kings 15:16 וּ/מִלְחָמָ֨ה conj + n c fs There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.
- 1 Kings 15:32 וּ/מִלְחָמָ֨ה conj + n c fs There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.
- 1 Kings 20:14 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֖ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Ahab said, By whom? He said, Thus says Yahweh, By the young men of the princes of the provinces. Then he said, Who shall begin the battle? He answered, You.
- 1 Kings 20:18 לְ/מִלְחָמָ֛ה prep + n c fs He said, Whether they are come out for peace, take them alive, or whether they are come out for war, taken them alive.
- 1 Kings 20:26 לַ/מִּלְחָמָ֖ה prep det + n c fs It happened at the return of the year, that Ben Hadad mustered the Syrians, and went up to Aphek, to fight against Israel.
- 1 Kings 20:29 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֔ה ptcl def.art + n c fs They encamped one over against the other seven days. So it was, that in the seventh day the battle was joined; and the children of Israel killed of the Syrians one hundred thousand footmen in one day.
- 1 Kings 20:39 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֗ה ptcl def.art + n c fs As the king passed by, he cried to the king; and he said, Your servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold, a man turned aside, and brought a man to me, and said, Keep this man: if by any means he be missing, then shall your life be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.
- 1 Kings 22:1 מִלְחָמָ֔ה n c fs They continued three years without war between Syria and Israel.
- 1 Kings 22:4 לַ/מִּלְחָמָ֖ה prep det + n c fs He said to Jehoshaphat, Will you go with me to battle to Ramoth-gilead? Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.
- 1 Kings 22:6 לַ/מִּלְחָמָ֖ה prep det + n c fs Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? They said, Go up; for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.
- 1 Kings 22:15 לַ/מִּלְחָמָ֖ה prep det + n c fs When he was come to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we forbear? He answered him, Go up and prosper; and Yahweh will deliver it into the hand of the king.
- 1 Kings 22:30 בַ/מִּלְחָמָ֔ה בַּ/מִּלְחָמָֽה prep det + n c fs prep det + n c fs The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself, and go into the battle; but put you on your robes. The king of Israel disguised himself, and went into the battle.
- 1 Kings 22:35 הַ/מִּלְחָמָה֙ ptcl def.art + n c fs The battle increased that day: and the king was stayed up in his chariot against the Syrians, and died at even; and the blood ran out of the wound into the bottom of the chariot.
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.
The Hebrew noun מלחמה centers on the idea of “battle.” Debuting at Genesis 14:2, it then recurs through the corpus. It appears 308 verses across 27 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. It shares a root with לחם, לחום and לחם. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4421 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 →
- 308
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 308 distinct verses.
- 27 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 27 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #156
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 156 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 308 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Chronicles 31 verses 10%
- 1 Samuel 29 verses 9%
- 2 Samuel 29 verses 9%
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 308 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 187 verses · 61%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 84 verses · 27%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 37 verses · 12%
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: Battle 125×, War 125×, Was war 8×
- American Standard Version: Battle 109×, War 106×, Was war 6×
- Berean Standard Bible: Battle 134×, War 90×, Fight 11×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Battle 171×, War 106×, Battles 7×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4421 across 315 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 37 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 4 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4421 across 312 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 60 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 H4421 across 298 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 29 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 21 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4421 across 310 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 1 sense 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.
- battle, war
Word origin
n.f. battle, war;—abs. מ׳ Gn 14:2, 8 Ex 1:10 +; cstr. מִלְחֶ֫מֶת 1 S 13:22 (מ׳ מִכְמָשׁ 𝔊 Th We Bu HPS Ew§ 188 c Köii 182 > abs. Thes al.); sf. מִלְחַמְתִּי 2 Ch 35:21; מִלְחַמְתְּךָ 2 S 11:25; מִלְחַמְתֶּ֑ךָ Is 41:12, etc.; pl. מִלְחָמוֹת Is 42:13 + 7 times Ch ψψ; cstr. מִלְחֲמוֹת Ju 3:1 +, etc.;—battle, Gn 14:8 1 S 17:1, 2, 8; 31:3 1 K 20:14, 18, 29, 39 + often; war, Gn 14:2 Ex 1:10 Dt 20:12 Jos 11:23; 14:15 2 S 3:1 (וַתְּהִי הַמִּלְחָמָה אֲרֻכָּה) +; מִלְחֲמוֹת כְּנָ֑עַן Ju 3:1; סֵפֶר מִלְחֲמֹת י׳ Nu 21:14 (JE); acc. cogn. c. נלחם †1 S 8:20 2 Ch 32:8 and (מִלְחֲמוֹת י׳) 1 S 18:17; 25:28†; = art of war, למד מ׳ Is 2:4 learn war = Mi 4:3; למּד מ׳ Ju 3:2 teach war, fighting; מְלַמֵּד יָדַי לַמּ׳ 2 S 22:35 = ψ 18:35, cf. ψ 144:1; לְמוּדֵי מ׳ 1 Ch 5:18, מְלֻמְּדֵי מ׳ Ct 3:8 instructed in war; once = battlefield וַיָּבֹאוּ עַד הַמּ׳ 1 S 14:20 (so KitKauAT). The most freq. phrases are: †אִישׁ מ׳ Is 3:2 1 S 16:18; 17:33 2 S 17:8 Ez 39:20 Jos 17:1 (P), also (coll.) Ju 20:17, of י׳ Ex 15:3 (poem); אַנְשֵׁי הַמּ׳ Jos 6:3; 10:24 (both JE), Dt 2:14, 16 Jos 5:4, 6 (all D), Je 38:4; 39:4; 41:3, 16; 49:26; 51:32; 52:7, 25, also 1 K 9:22 2 K 25:4 Nu 31:28, 49 (P), Jo 4:9; late אַנְשֵׁי מ׳ Jo 2:7 1 Ch 12:39 (v 38 van d. H) 2 Ch 8:9; 17:13; אִישׁ מִלְחָמוֹת Is 42:13 1 Ch 28:3; אַנְשֵׁי מִלְחַמְתָּהּ Je 50:30 her men of war, cf. Is 41:12 Ez 27:10, 27; אִישׁ מִלְחֲמוֹת תֹּעִי 2 S 8:10 a man of battles of Toi, i.e. his frequent opponent (v. Dr), = 1 Ch 18:10; seldom גִּבּוֹר מ׳ ψ 24:8 (of י׳), גִּבּוֹרֵי מ׳ 2 Ch 13:3; שָׂרֵי מִלְחָמוֹת 2 Ch 32:6; עַם הַמּ׳ Jos 8:1, 3; 10:7; 11:7, cf. 8:11 (all JE), cf. also 1 S 13:16 add. 𝔊 We Dr, cf. Klo; אַנְשֵׁי חַיִל לַמּ׳ Je 48:14; צְבָא מ׳ battle-host Is 13:4, so צ׳ הַמּ׳ Nu 31:14 (P); also גְּדוּדֵי צְבָא מ׳ 1 Ch 7:4, יֹצְאֵי צ׳ לַמּ׳ v 11, אַנְשֵׁי צָבָא לַמּ׳ 1 Ch 12:9 (v 8 van d. H)†; weapons of war, כְּלֵי (ה)מ׳ Ju 18:11, 17 Je 21:4; 51:20 1 Ch 12:34 (v 33 van d. H), also fig. 2 S 1:27 (‖ גִּבּוֹרִים); כְּלֵי צְבָא מ׳ 1 Ch 12:38 (v 37 van d. H.); קֶשֶׁת מ׳ Zc 9:10; 10:4; כְּלֵי מִלְחַמְתּוֹ his weapons of war 1 S 8:12 Dt 1:41, cf. Ju 18:16 Ez 32:37; דִּבְרֵי הַמּ׳ = the news of the battle 2 S 11:18, 19 + v 22 add. 𝔊 The We Klo Dr Bu. Freq. combin. with vbs. are: עָרַךְ מ׳ draw up battle-line Ju 20:22 +, sq. אֵת with = against Gn 14:8 Ju 20:20, sq. עִם 2 Ch 13:3; אסר המּ׳ i.e. begin the battle 1 K 20:14, cf. 2 Ch 13:3; וַתִּקְרַב הַמּ׳ 1 K 20:29 and the battle was joined; עָשָׂה מ׳ make war Pr 20:8; 24:6 1 Ch 22:8, sq. אֵת with Gn 14:2 Jos 11:18 (D), sq. עִם Dt 20:12, 20 1 Ch 5:10, 19; †יָצָא לַמּ׳ עִם Ju 20:14, 20, 28, c. עַל 1 K 8:44 2 Ch 6:34; הָלַךְ לַמּ׳ עִם 2 K 8:28; נגשׁ לַמּ׳ עִם Ju 20:23, c. בְּ 1 S 7:10 2 S 10:13, abs. Je 46:3†; וַתְּהִי הַמּ׳ עִם 2 S 21:18, 19, c. בֵּין 2 S 3:1, cf. v 6 +; †קִדַּשׁ מ׳ consecrate war, i.e. open a campaign (with sacred rites, Che) Mi 3:5 Je 6:4 (both c. על), Jo 4:9; cf. †וְהַמּ׳ הִדְבִּיקָתְהוּ Ju 20:42 and the battle clung to them; וַתַּעֲלֶה הַמּ׳ 22:35 and the battle rose (high) = 2 Ch 18:34; וַתִּטּשׁ הַמּ׳ 1 S 4:2, read וַתֵּט הַמּ׳ (𝔊 We Klo Bu, cf. Dr) and the battle inclined (in favour of one side); נָפוֹצֶת הַמּ׳ 2 S 18:8 Qr the battle was spread (extended), so read 1 S 14:24 add. 𝔊 The We Klo Dr; תָּקוּם עָלַי מ׳ ψ 27:3 if war rise against me†; הַמּ׳ כָּבֵ֑דָה Ju 20:34 the battle was severe, cf. וַתִּכְבַּד הַמּ׳ אֶל־שָׁאוּל 1 S 31:3 = 1 Ch 10:3 (על for אל); so וַתְּהִי הַמּ׳ חֲזָקָה 1 S 14:52, חָזַק מִמֶּנּוּ הַמּ׳ 2 K 3:26; וַתְּהִי הַמּ׳ קָשָׁה 2 S 2:17: cf. כֹּבֶד מ׳ Is 21:15, עֱזוּז מ׳ 42:25.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from לחם (lâcham) (H3898) — to fight.
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.
מִלְחָמָה
- war, contest. Sot. VIII, 1, a. fr. משוח מ׳ chaplain of the army (Deut. XX, 2), v. מָשַׁח I. Ib. 7 מִלְחֶמֶת הרשות (Bab. ed. 44ᵇ, pl.) secular (political) warfare; מ׳ מצוה a war for religious causes; מ׳ חובה וכ׳ a war of duty. Ib. 44ᵇ מ׳ יהושע וכ׳ the war of conquest under Joshua, all agree, is a war of duty &c.—Meg. 15ᵇ מִלְחַמְתָּהּ של תורה disputes about the Law; a. fr.—Pl. מִלְחָמוֹת. Sot. l. c. מִלְחֲמוֹת בית דוד לרווחה the wars of the house of David for extending the dominion. M. Kat. 25ᵇ (in a eulogy) גזע … ועמו ספר מ׳ an offspring of worthies came up from Babylonia and with him came the book of wars (allegorically for knowledge of the Law; oth. interpret. R. Hamnuna who came with Rabbah). Snh. 97ᵃ בשביעית מ׳ in the seventh Messianic year there will be wars; a. fr. e.g. Deuteronomy 20:2
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 84 distinct written forms H4421 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 24 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4421, 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 294 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 308 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
- Genesis 14:2
- Exodus 1:10
- Numbers 10:9
- Deuteronomy 1:41
- Joshua 4:13
- Judges 3:1
- 1 Samuel 4:1
- 2 Samuel 1:4
- 1 Kings 2:5
- 2 Kings 3:7
- 1 Chronicles 5:10
- 2 Chronicles 6:34
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.
