אָלַם
to bind
‘to bind’ is one of 2 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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H481 appears in the Book of Psalms — 3 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.
Psalms
- Psalms 31:18 תֵּ֥אָלַ֗מְנָה Niphal impf 3fp Let the lying lips be mute, Which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt.
- Psalms 39:2 נֶאֱלַ֣מְתִּי Niphal pf 1cs I was mute with silence. I held my peace, even from good. My sorrow was stirred.
- Psalms 39:9 נֶ֭אֱלַמְתִּי Niphal pf 1cs I was mute. I didn't open my mouth, Because you did it.
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.
אלם — transliterated ʼâlam — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to bind.” Debuting at Genesis 37:7, it then recurs through the corpus. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 9 verses — uncommon. More than a third of its appearances fall in Psalms. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 2 stems (Niphal, Piel, and more). 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 H481 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 →
- 9
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 9 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,481
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,481 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 9 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 9 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 44%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 44%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 11%
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: I was dumb 2×
- American Standard Version: I was dumb 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Be mute 1×, Be silenced 1×, Became speechless 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Mute 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H481 across 9 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H481 across 9 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H481 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H481 across 11 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.
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
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 2 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.
Niphal
- . (be bound =) be dumb
Piel
- . Pt. bind
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
Origin: a primitive root
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.
אָלַם
- , v. אָלַל)
- 1. [to surround]; to connect, tie (cmp. אסר. חגר); intr. to be tied up, excluded, lonely, mute; v. אִלֵּם, אַלְמוֹן II, אַלְמָנָה, אוּלָם.
- 2. to grow, be strong, v. אֲלַם. Cmp. אַלְמוֹן I. [Cmp. אֵלֶם Ps. LVIII, 2; LXX ἄρα, a. v. אוּלָם I.] e.g. Psalms 58:2
אֲלַם
- intr. אֲלֵים (אַלֵּים Pa., עלים) (v. preced.)
- 1. to be or grow strong, to grow. Targ. I Chr. XXII, 12 (13) אֲלַם (h. text אֱמָץ, Var. עילם). Targ. O. Deut. XXXI, 6; 7; 23 ed. Vien. א׳ (ed. Berl. ע׳, v. Berl. Targ. O. II, p. 59).—B. Bath. 124ᵃ; 135ᵇ (he left them) דיקלא וא׳ a slender palm-tree and it grew thick.
- 2. to tie, v. אֲלוּמָּא.
- 3. to be mute; v. Ithp.
- 1. to be strong, v. supra.
- 2. to strengthen, support. Targ. II Chr. XI, 17; a. e. Part. pass. f. מְאַלְּמָא resolved, insisting upon. Targ. Ruth I, 18 (h. text מתאמצת).—B. Kam. 90ᵃ אַלְמוּהָ רבנן וכ׳ the Rabbis fortified the husband’s right (gave him superior privileges). Kidd. 43ᵃ אַלּוּמֵי קא מְאַלִּימְנָא למילתיה (Rashi אַלְּמוּהָ) we (the court) give him privileges.
- 3. to overpower. Sabb. 156ᵇ אַלְּמֵיה יצריה his appetite overwhelmed him.
- 1. to make one’s self strong, to summon strength. Targ. Job XXXVI, 19.
- 2. to become mute, be silenced. Targ. Ps. XXXIX, 10. Targ. Koh. XII, 6. [Targ. Ps. XC, 10 מִתְאַלְּמִין (for h. text בָּהֶם?). [Targ. Job VI, 6 Ms. Vers. מִתְאַלֵּם (?), h. text חלמות!.]
אִלֵּם
- 1. cmp. חֵרֵשׁ) mute, unable to speak, also ignorant. Ter. I, 6; a. fr.—Ruth. R. to IV, 1 (ref. to almoni, Ruth. l. c.) א׳ היה מד"ת he was unable to speak of (excluded from) the Law (ignorant).—Pl. אִילְּ׳ אִלְּמִין אִלְּמִים. Snh. 71ᵃ; 100ᵃ.—Fem. אִלֶּמֶת, אִילֶּ׳. Num. R. s. 9. Ḥull. 79ᵃ. Sot. 10ᵇ אי׳; a. e.
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 9 distinct written forms H481 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וְ/נֶֽאֱלַ֔מְתָּ | Verb, Niphal, Sequential Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ezekiel 3:26 | 1 |
| וְ/נֶאֱלָֽמְתִּי | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Daniel 10:15 | 1 |
| מְאַלְּמִ֤ים | Verb, Piel, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Genesis 37:7 | 1 |
| נֶ֭אֱלַמְתִּי | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Psalms 39:9 | 1 |
| נֶאֱלַ֖מְתִּי | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Ezekiel 33:22 | 1 |
| נֶאֱלַ֣מְתִּי | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Psalms 39:2 | 1 |
| נֶאֱלָ֑מָה | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Isaiah 53:7 | 1 |
| תֵֽאָלֵ֖ם | Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ezekiel 24:27 | 1 |
| תֵּ֥אָלַ֗מְנָה | Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Plural | Psalms 31:18 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H481, 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.
Derived from this word
- אולם ʼûwlâm H197 porch
- אלם ʼêlem H482 in silence
- אלם ʼillêm H483 mute
- אלמה ʼălummâh H485 sheaf
- אלמן ʼalmân H488 widowed
- אלמן ʼalmôn H489 widowhood
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 → Showing 4 of 8 — not the complete family. 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 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 9 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.
