מִלְחָמָה
battle
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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
23 verses where H4421 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of Jeremiah. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Jeremiah
- Jeremiah 4:19 מִלְחָמָֽה n c fs My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can't hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
- Jeremiah 6:4 מִלְחָמָ֔ה n c fs Prepare you war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe to us! for the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.
- Jeremiah 6:23 לַ/מִּלְחָמָ֔ה prep det + n c fs They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion.
- Jeremiah 8:6 בַּ/מִּלְחָמָֽה prep det + n c fs I listened and heard, but they didn't speak aright: no man repents him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle.
- Jeremiah 18:21 בַּ/מִּלְחָמָֽה prep det + n c fs Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, [and] their young men struck of the sword in battle.
- Jeremiah 21:4 הַ/מִּלְחָמָה֮ ptcl def.art + n c fs Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you, without the walls; and I will gather them into the midst of this city.
- Jeremiah 28:8 לְ/מִלְחָמָ֖ה prep + n c fs The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.
- Jeremiah 38:4 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֜ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Then the princes said to the king, Let this man, we pray you, be put to death; because he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words to them: for this man doesn't seek the welfare of this people, but the hurt.
- Jeremiah 39:4 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֗ה ptcl def.art + n c fs It happened that, when Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah.
- Jeremiah 41:3 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֔ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Ishmael also killed all the Jews who were with him, [to wit], with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans who were found there, the men of war.
- Jeremiah 41:16 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֗ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Then took Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after that he had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, [to wit], the men of war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought back from Gibeon:
- Jeremiah 42:14 מִלְחָמָ֔ה n c fs saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell:
- Jeremiah 46:3 לַ/מִּלְחָמָֽה prep det + n c fs Prepare you the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle.
- Jeremiah 48:14 לַ/מִּלְחָמָֽה prep det + n c fs How say you, We are mighty men, and valiant men for the war?
- Jeremiah 49:2 מִלְחָמָ֗ה n c fs Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the children of Ammon; and it shall become a desolate heap, and her daughters shall be burned with fire: then shall Israel possess those who did possess him, says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 49:14 לַ/מִּלְחָמָֽה prep det + n c fs I have heard news from Yahweh, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, [saying], Gather yourselves together, and come against her, and rise up to the battle.
- Jeremiah 49:26 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֤ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, says Yahweh of Hosts.
- Jeremiah 50:22 מִלְחָמָ֖ה n c fs A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction.
- Jeremiah 50:42 לַ/מִּלְחָמָ֔ה prep det + n c fs They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Babylon.
- Jeremiah 51:20 מִלְחָמָ֑ה n c fs You are my battle-axe and weapons of war: and with you will I break in pieces the nations; and with you will I destroy kingdoms;
- Jeremiah 51:32 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֖ה ptcl def.art + n c fs and the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are frightened.
- Jeremiah 52:7 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֡ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldeans were against the city round about;) and they went toward the Arabah.
- Jeremiah 52:25 הַ/מִּלְחָמָ֗ה ptcl def.art + n c fs and out of the city he took an officer who was set over the men of war; and seven men of those who saw the king's face, who were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of the host, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the midst of the city.
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.
