נָא
please
also: I pray, now 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
- Particle
- A short function word — article, negation, interrogative, the sign of the direct object, and the like.
Every verse where H4994 appears in the Book of Jeremiah — 28 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 4:31 נָ֣א ptcl exh For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who brings forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, [saying], Woe is me now! for my soul faints before the murderers.
- Jeremiah 5:1 נָ֤א ptcl exh Run you back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places of it, if you can find a man, if there are any who does justly, who seeks truth; and I will pardon her.
- Jeremiah 5:21 נָ֣א ptcl exh Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and don't see; who have ears, and don't hear:
- Jeremiah 5:24 נָא֙ ptcl exh Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear Yahweh our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
- Jeremiah 7:12 נָ֗א ptcl exh But go you now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.
- Jeremiah 17:15 נָֽא ptcl exh Behold, they tell me, Where is the word of Yahweh? let it come now.
- Jeremiah 18:11 נָ֣א נָ֗א ptcl exh ptcl exh 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 18:13 נָא֙ ptcl exh Therefore thus says Yahweh: Ask you now among the nations, who has heard such things; the virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing.
- Jeremiah 21:2 נָ֤א ptcl exh Please inquire of Yahweh for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon makes war against us: peradventure Yahweh will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us.
- Jeremiah 25:5 נָ֞א ptcl exh 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 27:18 נָא֙ ptcl exh But if they be prophets, and if the word of Yahweh be with them, let them now make intercession to Yahweh of Hosts, that the vessels which are left in the house of Yahweh, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, don't go to Babylon.
- Jeremiah 28:7 נָא֙ ptcl exh Nevertheless hear you now this word that I speak in your ears, and in the ears of all the people:
- Jeremiah 28:15 נָ֣א ptcl exh Then said the prophet Jeremiah to Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah: Yahweh has not sent you; but you make this people to trust in a lie.
- Jeremiah 30:6 נָ֣א ptcl exh Ask now, and see whether a man does travail with child: why do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?
- Jeremiah 32:8 נָ֠א ptcl exh So Hanamel my uncle's son came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of Yahweh, and said to me, Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself. Then I knew that this was the word of Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 35:15 נָ֡א ptcl exh 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 36:15 נָ֔א ptcl exh They said to him, Sit down now, and read it in our ears. So Baruch read it in their ears.
- Jeremiah 36:17 נָ֣א ptcl exh They asked Baruch, saying, Tell us now, How did you write all these words at his mouth?
- Jeremiah 37:3 נָ֣א ptcl exh Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now to Yahweh our God for us.
- Jeremiah 37:20 נָ֖א נָ֤א ptcl exh ptcl exh Now please hear, my lord the king: please let my supplication be presented before you, that you not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.
- Jeremiah 38:4 נָא֮ ptcl exh 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 38:12 נָ֠א ptcl exh Ebedmelech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, Put now these rags and worn-out garments under your armholes under the cords. Jeremiah did so.
- Jeremiah 38:20 נָ֣א ptcl exh But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver you. Obey, I beg you, the voice of Yahweh, in that which I speak to you: so it shall be well with you, and your soul shall live.
- Jeremiah 38:25 נָּ֨א ptcl intj But if the princes hear that I have talked with you, and they come to you, and tell you, Declare to us now what you have said to the king; don't hide it from us, and we will not put you to death; also what the king said to you:
- Jeremiah 40:15 נָּא֙ ptcl intj Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Please let me go, and I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it: why should he take your life, that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?
- Jeremiah 42:2 נָ֤א ptcl exh and said to Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we pray you, our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes do see us:
- Jeremiah 44:4 נָ֣א ptcl exh However I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, don't do this abominable thing that I hate.
- Jeremiah 45:3 נָ֣א ptcl exh You did say, Woe is me now! for Yahweh has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.
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.
“please” is the headline sense of the Hebrew word נא (nâʼ). Scripture first uses it in Genesis 12:11. With 374 verses in 30 books, it is a common word in the Hebrew Bible. Not a single-sense word: its full sense range also takes in “I pray” and “now”. See the sense tree, 374-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4994 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 →
- 374
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 374 distinct verses.
- 30 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 30 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #123
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 123 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 374 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 374 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 217 verses · 58%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 96 verses · 26%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 61 verses · 16%
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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 3 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: I beseech thee 1×, I pray now 1×, I pray thee 1×
- American Standard Version†: I pray thee 2×, Now 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Please 163×, Now 58×, I pray 7×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Please 306×, Now 50×, Indeed 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4994 across 9† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4994 across 9† 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4994 across 253† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 151 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4994 across 393† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
14 senses and sub-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 14 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.
נא I part. of entreaty or exhortation, I (we) pray, now (enclitic) (Syriac ܢܺܐ, ܢܺܝ
- 1. to the imv., especially in colloquial style, when it expresses an entreaty or admonition, as Gn 12:13 אִמְרִי־נָא say, I pray, 13:9 הִפָּרֶד־נָא מֵעָלַי, v 14 שָׂא־נָא עֵינֶיךָ, 15:5 הַבֶּט־נָא השׁמימה, 24:2 + often, Nu 20:10 שׁמעו־נא המוֹרים, Ju 13:4; 16:6, 10, 28; 18:5, etc., Is 1:18; 5:3 Am 7:2, 5; rarely in a command, Gn 22:2 Is 7:3. Ironically, in a challenge, Is 47:12 Jb 40:10. Once anomalously attached to a subst., or (accents) prefixed to a verb, Nu 12:13 אֵ֕ל נָא֛ רְפָ֥א נָא֖ (Ew§ 246 a Di אַל־נָא; v. 3 b). e.g. Genesis 12:13
- 2. to the pf. with waw consec., in a precative sense (Dr§ 119 δ) Gn 40:14. e.g. Genesis 40:14
- 3. to the impf., when leave is asked, or a prayer or desire expressed;
- a. in 1 pers., especially with ה cohort., Gn 19:8 אוציאה־נא let me, I pray, bring out, v 20 אִמָּֽלְטָה־נָּא שָׁ֑מָּה, Ex 3:18 נלכה־נא let us go, I pray, אֵלְכָה נָּא 4:18 אִיעָצֵּךְ נָא עֵצָה let me give thee counsel, I pray, 1 Ki 1:12 Nu 20:17 Is 5:5; and in self-deliberation, Gn 18:21 ארדה־נּא I will go down, now! Ex 3:3 אסורה־נּא ואראה I will turn aside, now, and see, 2 S 14:15 Ct 3:2 Is 5:1; with אַל Jb 32:21. e.g. Genesis 19:8
- b. in 2 pers., with אַל, in deprecation, Gn 18:3 אל־נא תעבר מעל עבדך, 19:7; 47:29 Nu 10:31, etc.; hence ellipt. אל־נא do not, I pray, (do this,) Gn 19:18; 33:10 Nu 12:13 Ew Di e.g. Genesis 18:3
- c. in 3 pers., Gn 18:4 יֻקַּח־נָא let there be brought, I pray, 26:28; 33:14; 44:18, 33, etc., 2 S 14:11, 12, 17 1 K 17:21 2 K 2:9 ψ 7:10; 118:2, 3; ironically Is 19:12; 47:13, or defiantly Jer 17:15 where is the word of J.? יָבוֹא נָא; with אַל, Gn 13:8 אַל־נָא תְהִי מְרִיבָה, 18:30 אַל־נָא יִחַר לַאדֹנָי, 37:27 Nu 12:12. e.g. Genesis 18:4
- 4. joined to conjunctions and interjections:
- a. [אָהּ־נָא, contr.] אָ֫נָּא; v. p. 58.
- b. אַל־נָא, see above 3 b, c.
- c. אִם־נָא, especially in the phrase אם נא מצאתי חן בעיניך, used by one craving a favourable hearing †Gn 30:27; 33:10 Ju 6:17; 1 S 27:5, and with נא repeated in the request itself †Gn 18:3; 47:29; 50:4 Ex 33:13; 34:9; otherwise Gn 24:42. e.g. Genesis 30:27
- d. הִנֵּה־נָא behold, I pray, craving a favourable consideration of the fact pointed to by הִנֵּה, and of the request founded upon it (with which נא is often repeated), Gn 12:11; 16:2; 18:27, 31; 19:2, 8, 19, 20; 27:2 Ju 13:3; 19:9 1 S 9:6; 16:15 2 S 13:24 2 K 2:16, 19; 4:9 +, Jb 13:18; 33:2; 40:15, 16. e.g. Genesis 12:11
- e. (לנו) אוֹי־נָא לי Woe, now, to me (us)! †Je 4:31; 45:7 La 5:16. e.g. Jeremiah 4:31
- f. אַיֵּה־נָא where, pray? †ψ 115:2. e.g. Psalms 115:2
- g. נֶגְדָּה־נָּא, peculiarly, †ψ 116:14, 18 my vows to J. I will perform, נגדה־נא לכל־עמו O that (it may be) before all his people! e.g. Psalms 116:14
נא II raw, of flesh Ex 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
I. part. of entreaty or exhortation, I (we) pray, now (enclitic) (Syriac ܢܺܐ, ܢܺܝ; cf. Ethiopic ነዒ: veni, age! Di§ 160. 1 Lex675 Köii. 244);—attached:
III. adj. raw, of flesh Ex 12:9 (P; opp. בשׁל).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive particle of incitement and entreaty, which may usually be rendered: "I pray," "now," or "then"
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.
נָא I
- = אֲנָא. Y. Ter. V, 43ᶜ bot. ואוף נא וכ׳ I, too, think so. Y. Ber. IV, beg. 7ᵃ וָנָא אמרית וכ׳ and I gave a reason for it; a. fr.—V. דְּנָה, לֵינָא.—Pl. נַן. Y. B. Kam. II, beg. 2ᵈ מה נן אמרין וכ׳ why do we say &c.; a. fr.
נָא II
- (also adverb)(b. h.;
- 1. hurried, half-done. Pes. 41ᵃ bot. אכלו נא if he ate it (the Passover lamb) half-done. Ib.ᵇ ישנו בבל תאכל נא is subject to the law (Ex. XII, 9) &c. Tosef. Macc. IV (III), 1, contrad. to חַי. Men. 78ᵇ מצה נא, v. הַיָנָא; a. fr. e.g. Exodus 12:9
- 2. slender, fine, brittle. — Pl. נָאִין; f. נָאוֹת. Tosef. Kel. B. Kam. II, 9 [read with R. S. to Kel. III, 2:] הוסקו והנאין (= והן נאין) if the vessels were heated but turned out brittle. B. Bath, 97ᵇ (expl. פיטסות, ib. VI, 2) נאות ומגופרות thin, but lined with pitch; Tosef. ib. VI, 3.
נָא III
- (b. h.) I pray, prithee. Yoma IV, 2; a. fr.—Ber. 9ᵃ, a. e. אין נא אלא וכ׳, v. בַּקָּשָׁה.
נַן
- , pl. of נָא I.
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 43 distinct written forms H4994 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| נָ֣א | Particle, Exhortation | Ezekiel 8:8 | 66 |
| נָ֥א | Particle, Exhortation | Daniel 1:12 | 48 |
| נָ֤א | Particle, Exhortation | Daniel 9:16 | 33 |
| נָא֙ | Particle, Exhortation | Exodus 33:13 | 33 |
| נָ֖א | Particle, Exhortation | Exodus 4:13 | 31 |
| נָּ֣א | Particle, Interjection | Exodus 3:3 | 20 |
| נָ֞א | Particle, Exhortation | Genesis 16:2 | 19 |
| נָ֨א | Particle, Exhortation | Genesis 13:8 | 19 |
| נָ֔א | Particle, Exhortation | Amos 7:2 | 11 |
| נָ֛א | Particle, Exhortation | Genesis 24:17 | 11 |
| נָ֭א | Particle, Exhortation | Job 5:1 | 9 |
| נָ֠א | Particle, Exhortation | Genesis 19:2 | 8 |
| נָּא֙ | Particle, Interjection | Genesis 24:42 | 8 |
| נָ֗א | Particle, Exhortation | Genesis 37:32 | 7 |
| נָא֩ | Particle, Exhortation | Deuteronomy 4:32 | 7 |
| נָּ֤א | Particle, Interjection | Genesis 19:8 | 7 |
| נָּ֥א | Particle, Interjection | Genesis 27:21 | 7 |
| נָּ֖א | Particle, Interjection | 1 Chronicles 22:5 | 5 |
| נָּ֗א | Particle, Interjection | Deuteronomy 3:25 | 5 |
| נָ֑א | Particle, Exhortation | 1 Kings 20:35 | 4 |
| נָ֕א | Particle, Exhortation | Genesis 37:6 | 4 |
| נָ֜א | Particle, Exhortation | 1 Samuel 26:8 | 4 |
| נָ֧א | Particle, Exhortation | Haggai 2:11 | 4 |
| נָּ֛א | Particle, Interjection | Ecclesiastes 2:1 | 4 |
| נָ֡א | Particle, Exhortation | 1 Samuel 20:29 | 3 |
| נָ֝א | Particle, Exhortation | Psalms 124:1 | 2 |
| נָֽא | Particle, Exhortation | Genesis 24:45 | 2 |
| נָא | Particle, Exhortation | Isaiah 29:11 | 2 |
| נָא֮ | Particle, Exhortation | 2 Kings 2:16 | 2 |
| נָּ֜א | Particle, Interjection | Genesis 19:20 | 2 |
| נָּ֝֗א | Particle, Interjection | Psalms 116:14 | 2 |
| נָּ֨א | Particle, Interjection | Jeremiah 38:25 | 2 |
| נָּא | Particle, Interjection | Genesis 19:2 | 2 |
| נָ֝֗א | Particle, Exhortation | Psalms 115:2 | 1 |
| נָ֬א | Particle, Exhortation | Psalms 7:9 | 1 |
| נָּ֑א | Particle, Interjection | Psalms 118:25 | 1 |
| נָּ֔א | Particle, Interjection | 2 Samuel 18:19 | 1 |
| נָּ֞א | Particle, Interjection | Exodus 3:18 | 1 |
| נָּ֡א | Particle, Interjection | Exodus 5:3 | 1 |
| נָּ֭א | Particle, Interjection | Job 17:3 | 1 |
| נָּֽא | Particle, Interjection | Psalms 118:25 | 1 |
| נָּא֩ | Particle, Interjection | 1 Kings 20:31 | 1 |
| נא | Particle, Exhortation | 2 Kings 5:18 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 358 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 374 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 12:11
- Exodus 3:3
- Numbers 10:31
- Deuteronomy 3:25
- Joshua 2:12
- Judges 1:24
- Ruth 2:2
- 1 Samuel 2:36
- 2 Samuel 1:4
- 1 Kings 1:12
- 2 Kings 1:13
- 1 Chronicles 21:8
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.
