מַעֲלָל
deed
‘deed’ 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 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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 42 times (98%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 1 time (2%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 43 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H4611 appears — 41 distinct verses across 12 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.
Deuteronomy 1 verse
Judges 1 verse
1 Samuel 1 verse
Nehemiah 1 verse
Psalms 5 verses
- Psalms 28:4 מַֽעַלְלֵ֫י/הֶ֥ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Give them according to their work, and according to the wickedness of their doings. Give them according to the operation of their hands. Bring back on them what they deserve.
- Psalms 77:11 מַֽעַלְלֵי n c mp cs I will remember Yah's deeds; For I will remember your wonders of old.
- Psalms 78:7 מַֽעַלְלֵי n c mp cs That they might set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep his commandments,
- Psalms 106:29 בְּ/מַֽעַלְלֵי/הֶ֑ם prep + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Thus they provoked him to anger with their deeds. The plague broke in on them.
- Psalms 106:39 בְּ/מַֽעַלְלֵי/הֶֽם prep + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Thus were they defiled with their works, And prostituted themselves in their deeds.
Proverbs 1 verse
Isaiah 3 verses
- Isaiah 1:16 מַעַלְלֵי/כֶ֖ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp Wash yourselves, make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; Cease to do evil.
- Isaiah 3:8 וּ/מַֽעַלְלֵי/הֶם֙ conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; Because their tongue and their doings are against Yahweh, To provoke the eyes of his glory.
- Isaiah 3:10 מַעַלְלֵי/הֶ֖ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Tell the righteous "Good!" For they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.
Jeremiah 17 verses
- Jeremiah 4:4 מַעַלְלֵי/כֶֽם n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
- Jeremiah 4:18 וּ/מַ֣עֲלָלַ֔יִ/ךְ conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 2fs Your way and your doings have procured these things to you; this is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart.
- Jeremiah 7:3 וּ/מַֽעַלְלֵי/כֶ֑ם conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
- Jeremiah 7:5 מַֽעַלְלֵי/כֶ֑ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;
- Jeremiah 11:18 מַעַלְלֵי/הֶֽם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Yahweh gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it: then you shown me their doings.
- Jeremiah 17:10 מַעֲלָלָֽי/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
- Jeremiah 18:11 וּ/מַעַלְלֵי/כֶֽם conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return you now everyone from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.
- Jeremiah 21:12 מעללי/הם מַעַלְלֵי/כֶֽם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp House of David, thus says Yahweh, Execute justice in the morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
- Jeremiah 21:14 מַעַלְלֵי/כֶ֖ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Yahweh; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is round about her.
- Jeremiah 23:2 מַעַלְלֵי/כֶ֖ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them; behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings, says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 23:22 מַֽעַלְלֵי/הֶֽם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my people to hear my words, and had turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.
- Jeremiah 25:5 מַעַלְלֵי/כֶ֔ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp saying, Return you now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that Yahweh has given to you and to your fathers, from of old and even forevermore;
- Jeremiah 26:3 מַעַלְלֵי/הֶֽם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp It may be they will listen, and turn every man from his evil way; that I may repent me of the evil which I purpose to do to them because of the evil of their doings.
- Jeremiah 26:13 וּ/מַ֣עַלְלֵי/כֶ֔ם conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of Yahweh your God; and Yahweh will repent him of the evil that he has pronounced against you.
- Jeremiah 32:19 מַעֲלָלָֽי/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open on all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings:
- Jeremiah 35:15 מַֽעַלְלֵי/כֶ֗ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp I have sent also to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return you now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and don't go after other gods to serve them, and you shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but you have not inclined your ear, nor listened to me.
- Jeremiah 44:22 מַעַלְלֵי/כֶ֔ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp so that Yahweh could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed; therefore is your land become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day.
Ezekiel 1 verse
Hosea 5 verses
- Hosea 4:9 וּ/מַעֲלָלָ֖י/ו conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms It will be, like people, like priest; And I will punish them for their ways, And will repay them for their deeds.
- Hosea 5:4 מַ֣עַלְלֵי/הֶ֔ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Their deeds won't allow them to turn to their God; For the spirit of prostitution is within them, And they don't know Yahweh.
- Hosea 7:2 מַֽעַלְלֵי/הֶ֔ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp They don't consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own deeds have engulfed them. They are before my face.
- Hosea 9:15 מַֽעַלְלֵי/הֶ֔ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp "All their wickedness is in Gilgal; For there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels.
- Hosea 12:2 כְּ/מַעֲלָלָ֖י/ו prep + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms Yahweh also has a controversy with Judah, And will punish Jacob according to his ways; According to his deeds he will repay him.
Micah 3 verses
- Micah 2:7 מַעֲלָלָ֑י/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms Shall it be said, O house of Jacob: "Is the Spirit of Yahweh angry? Are these his doings? Don't my words do good to him who walks blamelessly?"
- Micah 3:4 מַעַלְלֵי/הֶֽם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Then they will cry to Yahweh, But he will not answer them. Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, Because they made their deeds evil."
- Micah 7:13 מַֽעַלְלֵי/הֶֽם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Yet the land will be desolate because of those who dwell therein, For the fruit of their doings.
Zechariah 2 verses
- Zechariah 1:4 ו/מעלילי/כם וּ/מַֽעֲלְלֵי/כֶ֖ם conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp Don't you be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying: Thus says Yahweh of hosts, 'Return now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings;' but they did not hear, nor listen to me, says Yahweh.
- Zechariah 1:6 וּ/כְ/מַ֣עֲלָלֵ֔י/נוּ conj + prep + n c mp cs + sfx pers 1cp But my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, didn't they overtake your fathers? "Then they repented and said, 'Just as Yahweh of Hosts determined to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so he has dealt with us.'"
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.
At its core, מעלל (maʻălâl) means “deed.” Translators differ — “doings” in the King James Version, then “deeds” (Berean Standard Bible), as the renderings breakdown shows. It turns up in 41 verses across 12 books, a moderately common footprint. The word gravitates to Jeremiah (41%), then Psalms and Hosea. Ranging over 4 senses, it is not a single-sense word. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4611 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 →
- 41
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 41 distinct verses.
- 12 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 12 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #837
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 837 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 41 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 41 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 33 verses · 80%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 7 verses · 17%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 2%
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: Doings 30×, Works 3×
- American Standard Version: Doings 30×, Works 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Deeds 25×, Works 3×, Actions 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Deeds 31×, Actions 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4611 across 41 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 H4611 across 41 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 H4611 across 40 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 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 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4611 across 40 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 4 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.
- deed, practice
- practice (usually bad)
- deeds
- acts
Word origin
[ מַעֲלָל ] 41 n.m. deed, practice
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from עלל (ʻâlal) (H5953) — to act severely.
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.
מַעֲלָל
- [bringing about,] deed. — Pl. מַעֲלָלִים. Midr. Till. to Ps. LXII, 13 מַעֲלָלָיו הרעים his evil deeds.
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 33 distinct written forms H4611 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4611, 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
- על ʻôl H5923 yoke
- עליל ʻălîyl H5948 furnace
- עלילה ʻălîylâh H5949 wantonness
- עלל ʻălal H5954 to go in
- עללה ʻôlêlâh H5955 gleaning
- תעלול taʻălûwl H8586 vexation
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 8 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 39 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 41 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
- Deuteronomy 28:20
- Judges 2:19
- 1 Samuel 25:3
- Psalms 28:4
- Proverbs 20:11
- Isaiah 1:16
- Jeremiah 4:4
- Ezekiel 36:31
- Hosea 4:9
- Micah 2:7
- Zechariah 1:4
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.
