נָוָה
pasture
also: abode, abode of shepherd, habitation, meadow 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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H4999 appears in the Book of Joel — 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.
Joel
- Joel 1:19 נְא֣וֹת n c fp cs Yahweh, I cry to you, For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, And the flame has burned all the trees of the field.
- Joel 1:20 נְא֥וֹת n c fp cs Yes, the animals of the field pant to you, For the water brooks have dried up, And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
- Joel 2:22 נְא֣וֹת n c fp cs Don't be afraid, you animals of the field; For the pastures of the wilderness spring up, For the tree bears its fruit. The fig tree and the vine yield their strength.
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.
“pasture” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun נאה (nâʼâh). Translators differ — “pastures” in the King James Version, then “pastures of” (unfoldingWord Literal Text), as the renderings breakdown shows. It turns up in 12 verses across 5 books, an uncommon footprint. It concentrates in Psalms, which alone accounts for 33% of its uses. Not a single-sense word: its full sense range also takes in “abode”, “abode of shepherd”, and “habitation”. See the sense tree, 12-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4999 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 →
- 12
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 12 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,101
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,101 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 12 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 12 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 7 verses · 58%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 42%
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†: Pastures 5×, Habitations 4×
- American Standard Version†: Pastures 8×, Habitations 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Pastures 8×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Pastures of 11×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4999 across 12† 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4999 across 12† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H4999 across 10† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H4999 across 13† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 4 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.
נאה I only
Hiphil
- (si vera l.) lit. beautify (then connected with נאה be comely, so Buhl SS; cf. NH נוה Niph. shew oneself beautiful, Nithp. adorn oneself, נָוֶה adj. beautiful, LevyNHWB);—Impf. 1 s. sf. אַנְוֵהוּ Ex 15:2 I will beautify, adorn him (with praises; obj. י׳; ‖ רומם; 𝔊 δοξάσω, 𝔙 glorificabo).—Adj. נָוָה Je 6:2, v. נָאוֶה sub [נָאָה]. e.g. Exodus 15:2
נאה II denom. dwell, abide (si vera l.)
Qal
- Impf. 3 ms. לֹא יִנְוֶה Hb 2:5 he shall not abide, so Ke; Hi rest (cf. Da); We proposes יִרְוֶה be satiated, cf. 𝔖 Krochm יָנוּחַ. e.g. Habakkuk 2:5
נאה III pasture, meadow
- 1. pasture, meadow: נ׳ הָרֹעִים Am 1:2, cf. Zp 2:6 (‖ גִּדְרוֹת צֹאן; v. also [כָּרָה] p. 500 supr.); especially נְאוֹת (הַ)מִּדְבָּר Je 9:9; 23:10 ψ 65:13, Jo 1:19, 20; 2:22; נ׳ דֶּשֶׁא ψ 23:2 grassy pastures; נ׳ אֱלֹהִים ψ 83:13 pastures of God, i.e. the land of Canaan, נ׳ יַעֲקֹב La 2:2; נ׳ הַשָּׁלוֹם Je 25:37 meadows of peace; e.g. Amos 1:2
- 2. נ׳ חָמָס ψ 74:20 appar. habitations (?) of violence, but read prob. גַּאֲוָה וְח׳, so Bi Che (v. 73:6).—Je 6:2 v. sub [נָאָה]; Jb 8:6 v. i. נָוֶה. e.g. Psalms 74:20
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
II. vb.denom. dwell, abide (si vera l.);—only
III. n.f. pasture, meadow;—pl. cstr. נְוֹת Zp 2:6, usually נְאוֹת ψ 23:2 + 11 times;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from נאה (nâʼâh) (H4998) — to be comely.
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.
נָאֶה
- (b. h.; = נאוה, v. אוּת) suited, becoming; handsome. Tanḥ. B’shall. 11 נ׳ שירה וכ׳ it is meet to sing unto the Lord. Sabb. 133ᵇ; Naz. 2ᵇ סוכה נ׳ a handsome Succah; a. fr.—Ib. I, 1, v. נָוֶה.—Pl. נָאִים, נָאִין; נָאוֹת. Sifra Aḥăré, end (ref. to Lev. XVIII, 26 ושמרתם אתם) אתם נ׳ שומרים וכ׳ you are the proper persons to guard them (the laws of chastity), because you opened (were the first to observe) them. Tanḥ. Masʿé 4 הם נ׳ ולבושיהם נ׳ הם נ׳ לארץ וכ׳ they are handsome, and their garments are becoming, they are suited to the land, and the land to them. Ned. IX, 10 בנות ישראל נ׳ הן אלא וכ׳ the daughters of Israel are good-looking, but misery disfigures them. Sabb. l. c. Sifré Deut. 320 (ref. to Deut. XXXII, 19) ממה שהם נ׳ לו וכ׳ because they are pleasing to him (he calling them sons and daughters), they are bold before him. Tosef. Sot. II, 3 יולדת נ׳ she will bear handsome children; Y. ib. III, 18ᵈ bot. נָעִים; a. fr.—נָאוֹת f. pl. (noun) beauties. Lam. R. to II, 2 (ref. to נאות, ib.) כל נְאוֹתָיו של יצקב all the beauties (excellent men) of Jacob. Yalk. Ex. 244 (ref. to ואנוהו, Ex. XV, 2) אגיד נאותיו ושבחו של וכ׳ I will tell the excellencies and praises of &c.; ib. אדבר בנאותיו ושבחיו; Mekh. B’shall., Shir., s. 3 בנבואתו שבחו (corr. acc.); Yalk. Cant. 988 בנויתיו ובשבחו, read: בנוֹיוֹתָיו, v. נוֹי. Treat. Sof’rim III, 13 היבות בנאות שלו speak much of his excellencies. Lam. R. introd. end, v. קִינָה; a. fr.—נָאֶה (adv.) becomingly, well. Tosef. Yeb. VIII, 4, a. e. נ׳ דירש preaches well, ונ׳ מקיים and acts in conformity (with his words). e.g. Leviticus 18:26
נָאָה
- v. preced.) marked off, distinguished place. — Pl. constr. נְאוֹת. Deut. R. s. 7 end בנ׳ דשאים של באר in the grass-covered oases around the well.
נָאָה ²
- to be becoming &c., v. נאי.
נאי
- to be becoming, handsome.
- to beautify, decorate. Succ. 10ᵃ לנָאוֹתָהּ to decorate it (the Succah); a. e.
- 1. to adorn one’s self. Naz. 2ᵇ (ref. to ואנוהו, Ex. XV, 2) אֶנָּאֶה לפניו וכ׳ I will adorn myself before him with good deeds; Sabb. 133ᵇ הִתְנָאֶה וכ׳ adorn thyself before him &c. R. Hash. 26ᵃ חוטא בל יִתְנָאֶה a sinner must not adorn himself (when appearing before the Lord to ask forgiveness). Gen. R. s. 16 (play on נִינְוֵה) שהם מִתְנָאוֹת מישראל (not מתגאות) they (the goverments) adorn themselves with what they take from Israel; a. e.—V. נָוָה I.—2) (cmp. הָנָה Nif., a. אוּת) to be pleased, to enjoy, make use. R. Hash. 11ᵃ beautiful trees להִתְנָאוֹת בהן בני אדם (Ms. M. לֵיהָנוֹת מהן) for men to enjoy their beauty. Snh. 21ᵇ שלא יתנאה בשל וכ׳ that he make no use of a copy that his fathers have written; (Tosef. ib. IV, 7 שלא יהא ניאות). e.g. Exodus 15:2
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 4 distinct written forms H4999 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| נְא֣וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Amos 1:2 | 9 |
| בִּ/נְא֣וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Psalms 23:2 | 1 |
| נְא֤וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Jeremiah 9:10 | 1 |
| נְא֥וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Joel 1:20 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4999, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 12 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.
