מַקֵּל
staff
‘staff’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H4731 appears in the Book of Jeremiah — 2 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.
Jeremiah
- Jeremiah 1:11 מַקֵּ֥ל n c ms cs Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, Jeremiah, what see you? I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.
- Jeremiah 48:17 מַקֵּ֖ל n c ms cs All you who are round about him, bemoan him, and all you who know his name; say, How is the strong staff broken, the beautiful rod!
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.
מקל — transliterated maqqêl — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “staff.” The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 16 verses — uncommon. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in Genesis. Debuting at Genesis 30:37, it then recurs through the corpus. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4731 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 →
- 16
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 16 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,612
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,612 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 16 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 16 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 9 verses · 56%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 7 verses · 44%
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: Staff 7×, Rods 3×, Rod 2×
- American Standard Version: Staff 7×, Rods 3×, Rod 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Staff 6×, Branches 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Staff 7×, Branches 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4731 across 17 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4731 across 17 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H4731 across 18 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4731 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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. branch of tree as rod, stick, used by Jacob in breeding his flocks, Gn 30:37 (מ׳ לִבְנֶה לַח), v 37, 38, 39, 41(×2); of symbolic rod (מ׳ שָׁקֵד almond-rod) in Jerem.’s vision Je 1:11; symbolic rods or staves, with names, used by proph. Zc 11:7, 10, 14; fig. of Moab מ׳ תִּפְאָרָת Je 48:17 (‖ מַטֵּה־עֹז). e.g. Genesis 30:37
- 2. staff, used in journeying Gn 32:11 Ex 12:11, 1 S 17:40 cf. v 43; carried even when riding Nu 22:27; so also מַקֵּל יָד Ez 39:9 (=riding-stick) according to Hi Da Berthol; מָגֵן, צִנָּה, קֶשֶׁת, חִצִּים, רֹמַח). e.g. Genesis 32:11
- 3. wand of diviner Ho 4:12. e.g. Hosea 4:12
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. Zc 11:7 (appar. f. Gn 30:37, where בָּהֶן, but Sam. בָּהֶם) rod, staff (√ dub.; Thes assumes √ מקל sprout; Schwally ZAW xi. 1891, 170 f. from קלל=shake, with ref. to oracle of the lot (cf. קִלְקַל בַּחִצִּים Ez 21:26); Ba ZMG xii. 1887, 616 gives √ קל, and comp. قُلَةٌ stick driven by another, in sport; Frä ZA iii. 52, comp. Ethiopic በቀልት growth, stem, palm-tree (interchange of ב and מ));—מ׳ abs. Nu 22:27; cstr. Je 1:11 + 2 times; מַקַּל Gn 30:37; sf. מַקְלִי 32:11 + 2 times; מַקְלוֹ 1 S 17:40 Ho 4:12; מַקֶּלְכֶם Ex 12:11; pl. abs. מַקְלוֹת Gn 30:37 + 6 times;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: from an unused root meaning apparently to germinate
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.
מַקֵּל
- c. (b. h.; קלל to swing) walking stick, in gen. staff. Sabb. 66ᵃ מ׳ של זקנים old men’s stick. Kel. XVII, 16; Tosef. Kel. B. Mets. VII, 9 מ׳ שיש בו בית וכ׳ a staff which has a secret receptacle for a m’zuzah (מְזוּזָה) or jewels. Ab. Zar. III, 1 כל שיש בידו מ׳ a statue holding in its hand a staff; ib. 41ᵃ מ׳ שרודה את עצמו … כמ׳ the staff intimates symbolically that he causes himself to be chastised as with a staff in behalf of the entire world (vicarious sacrifice). Y. Dem. VII, beg. 26ᵃ [read:] מהו דחמית בחלמי דמ׳ בלשי וכ׳ (not דמיקל) what does it mean that I saw in my dream an officer’s staff suspended from my body?—Y. Ned. IX, beg., 41ᵇ מַקְלוֹ של ר"מ היתה וכ׳ R. Meir’s staff was in my hand, and it taught me knowledge. Toh. VIII, 9 מ׳ שהיא מלאה וכ׳ a staff which has become wet with unclean fluids; Tosef. ib. IX, 15 מ׳ שהיה וכ׳ (corr. acc.); a. v. fr.—Sabb. 139ᵃ (ref. to Is. XIV, 5) אלו הדיינים שנעשו וכ׳ this alludes to judges who are a staff (of support) to their beadles (conniving at their abuses).—Pl. מַקְלוֹת. Pes. V, 9. R. Hash. I, 9 לוקחין בידם מ׳ they may take sticks with them (for defence); a. e.—Yoma VI, 7 (67ᵇ) קלען במ׳ Y. ed. (Bab. a. Mish. במקלעות, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 6) he twisted the limbs of the animals around carrying poles. e.g. Isaiah 14:5
קַל I
- to be light, v. קָלַל.
קַל II
- preced.) light;
- 1. unimportant, of minor value; easy to achieve.—קל וחומר, v. חוֹמֶר I. Ḥull. XII, 5 מצוה ק׳ שהיא כאיסר a slight religious act which is performed at a sacrifice of one Isar. Y. Kidd. I, 61ᵇ bot. השוה הכתוב מצוה ק׳ שבקַלּוֹת וכ׳ the Bible put the lightest of the light acts (Deut. XXII, 7) on the same level with the most serious (Ex. XX, 12). Tosef. Yoma V (IV), 4 מאכילין אותו הקל הקל you must give him to eat (of forbidden things on hand) that which is of comparatively minor import; a. fr.—Pl. קַלִּים, קַלִּין; קַלּוֹת.—קלים וחמורים, v. חוֹמֶר I.—Dem. I, 1 הק׳ שבדמאי those fruits with which, in cases of doubt as to tithes (v. דְּמַאי), the law deals most leniently. Yoma VIII, 8 על עבירות ק׳ for minor transgressions (to which the lowest penalty is attached); ib. 85ᵇ אלו הן ק׳ וכ׳ these are the minor transgressions: omission of a positive command &c. (v. עָשָׂה); Tosef. ib. V (IV), 5. R. Hash. 25ᵇ, a. e. שלשה קַלֵּי עולם the three worthless (chiefs) in Israel’s history, opp. חמורי עולם. Ib. אפי׳ קל שבק׳ וכ׳ (not קלין) even the most worthless of worthless men, if once appointed a leader, should be respected like the strongest &c.; a. fr. e.g. Deuteronomy 22:7
- 2. lowly, poor.—Pl. as ab. Arakh. 24ᵃ שלא ישהא מרגלית לק׳ one must not delay the valuation of a jewel dedicated for its value by poor men (for the sake of taking it to a large town where a higher price can be obtained, but it must go by its local value); ib. 18ᵃ מרגלית לק׳ as to local valuation.
- 3. quick. Ab. III, 12, v. נוֹחַ II. Ib. V, 20 הוי … קל כנשר וכ׳ be … swift as an eagle, and run like a deer to do the will of thy Father in heaven. Sabb. VIII, 5 ביצה ק׳ שבבצים the lightest of eggs; expl. ib. 80ᵇ ק׳ לבשל quick to boil; Y. ib. VIII, 11ᵇ top. Gen. R. s. 16, v. חַד I. Keth. 112ᵃ (ref. to Jer. III, 19 נחלת צבי) מה צבי זה קל … ק׳ לבשל וכ׳ as the deer is the swiftest of beasts, so the land of Israel is the swiftest of all lands to ripen its fruits. Ex. R. s. 19, a. fr. לשעה קלה after a short time; a. fr.—Pl. as ab. Gen. R. l. c.; a. e. e.g. Jeremiah 3:19
קַל III
- c. = h. קוֹל, voice, sound; rumor. Targ. Ez. XI, 13. Targ. Gen. XXVII, 22. Targ. Ps. XCII, 12; a. fr.—M. Kat. 18ᵇ ק׳ דלא פסיק, v. פְּסַק. B. Bath. 5ᵃ רמא ביה ק׳ raised his voice against him (rebuked him). Y. Kil. IX, 32ᵇ top [read:] ואזל ק׳ דקרעין לגופפתה and the sound of (the lamentations at) the rending of garments went as far as Gof’fatha; Y. Keth. XII, 35ᵃ ואזיל קָלָה לקרעין וכ׳ (corr. acc.); a. fr.—בת ק׳, ברת ק׳ = h. בת קול (v. בַּת I) divine voice. Targ. Y. Gen. XXXVIII, 26; a. e.—Snh. 96ᵇ נפקת בת ק׳ (not נפקא ק׳) a divine voice came forth; a. fr.—Pl. קָלַיָּא, קָלִין, קָלֵי. Targ. Ex. IX, 23. Ib. 29; a. fr.—Targ. Ps. XCIII, 4 קָלָן.—B. Mets. 85ᵃ מעבר ליה קָלֵיה לקָלַיְהוּ the sound of his cry (in pain) drowned their (the beasts’) voices. R. Hash. 27ᵃ תרי ק׳ two simultaneous (or immediately consecutive) sounds; a. e.
קָל II
- (preced.) Ḳal (Voice), name of the genius of Nebuchadnezzar. Ex. R. s. 21 (ref. to Dan. IV, 28). e.g. Daniel 4:28
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 18 distinct written forms H4731 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 H4731, 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.
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 14 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 16 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.
