נָא

please

also: I pray, now fuller range ↓

H4994 Strong's Hebrew

nâʼ Transliteration

/naw/ Pronunciation

Usage in the Hebrew Bible 403 appearances

Definition — BDB

I (we) pray, now, please - used in entreaty or exhortation

Cite this entry

Strong's H4994 — נא (nâʼ), "please". Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906). Lemma, https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H4994.

Show BibTeX & RIS

BibTeX

@misc{lemma-H4994,
  author       = {Lemma},
  title        = {H4994 נא (nâʼ) — please},
  howpublished = {\url{https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H4994}},
  note         = {Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906). Lemma interlinear Bible study tool}
}

RIS

TY  - GEN
AU  - Lemma
TI  - H4994 — נא (nâʼ), "please"
PB  - Lemma
N1  - Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906)
UR  - https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H4994
ER  -

Compare with another word →

Grammar key — what these labels mean

Particle: A short function word — article, negation, interrogative, the sign of the direct object, and the like.

Grammatical forms

Particle, Exhortation 332 times (82%)
Particle, Interjection 71 times (18%)

Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 403 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.

Page 2 of 2 — showing verses 201–374 of 374 distinct verses where H4994 appears, across 30 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.

1 Kings 17 verses

2 Kings 33 verses

1 Chronicles 5 verses

2 Chronicles 3 verses

Ezra 1 verse

Ezra 10:14 נָ֣א ptcl exh Let now our princes be appointed for all the assembly, and let all those who are in our cities who have married foreign women come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges of it, until the fierce wrath of our God be turned from us, until this matter be dispatched.

Nehemiah 5 verses

Job 23 verses

Psalms 15 verses

Ecclesiastes 1 verse

Ecclesiastes 2:1 נָּ֛א ptcl intj I said in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with mirth: therefore enjoy pleasure;" and, behold, this also was vanity.

Song of Solomon 2 verses

Isaiah 17 verses

Jeremiah 28 verses

Lamentations 2 verses

Ezekiel 5 verses

Daniel 2 verses

Amos 2 verses

Jonah 3 verses

Micah 4 verses

Haggai 4 verses

Zechariah 3 verses

Malachi 3 verses

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

Strong's · 1890

I beseech thee

Modern gloss

please

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.
Genesis 12:11: first appearance; The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 12:11.
Malachi 3:10: last appearance; The latest occurrence is in Malachi 3:10.
#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 →

Most concentrated in

Genesis 64 verses 17%
1 Samuel 33 verses 9%
2 Samuel 33 verses 9%

By section of the Old Testament

Pentateuch 96 · 26%
Historical 164 · 44%
Wisdom 41 · 11%
Prophets 73 · 20%

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:

“I beseech thee” 1×
“I pray now” 1×
“I pray thee” 1×
“I pray you” 1×
“Let” 1×
“Let her not be as one dead” 1×
“Now” 1×
“Now therefore go to” 1×
“Oh” 1×

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders H4994 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“I pray thee” 2×
“Now” 2×

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:

“Please” 163×
“Now” 58×
“I pray” 7×
“I beg you” 2×
“O” 2×
“Therefore” 2×
“We pray” 2×

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:

“Please” 306×
“Now” 50×
“Indeed” 6×
“May” 4×
“Then” 3×
“Just” 2×
“Let” 2×
“Right” 2×
“The” 2×

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"

TWOT: 1269

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

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.