נָבָא
to prophesy
‘to prophesy’ is one of 3 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”). Here: ‘prophesy under influence of divine spirit’
- Hithpael
- The reflexive or reciprocal stem (the subject acts on itself). Here: ‘prophesy under influence of divine spirit’
Form
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
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).
Person
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H5012 appears in the Book of Joel — 1 distinct verse. 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
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.
נבא — transliterated nâbâʼ — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to prophesy.” Debuting at Numbers 11:25, it then recurs through the corpus. It appears 102 verses across 10 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. More than a third of its appearances fall in Jeremiah. Different stems carry different senses — BDB groups them under 2 stems, among them Niphal and Hithpael. 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 H5012 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 →
- 102
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 102 distinct verses.
- 10 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 10 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #382
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 382 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 102 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 102 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 91 verses · 89%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 8%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 3%
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: Prophesy 42×, Prophesied 17×, They prophesy 7×
- American Standard Version: Prophesy 28×, Prophesied 11×, They prophesy 6×
- Berean Standard Bible: Prophesy 47×, Prophesied 10×, Prophesying 10×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Prophesy 41×, Are prophesying 12×, Prophesied 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5012 across 115 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 24 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 H5012 across 114 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 40 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 H5012 across 114 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 H5012 across 121 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 12 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
12 senses and sub-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. This entry also uses Hithpael (reflexive or reciprocal).
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 12 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
- Pf. 3 ms. נִבָּא Je 20:1 + 7 times; 2 ms. נִבֵּאתָ Je 20:6 + 2 times; נִבֵּיתָ Je 26:9; 1 s. נִבֵּאתִי Ez 37:7; 3 pl. נִבְּאוּ Je 2:8 + 3 times; נִבָּ֑נוּ Je 23:21; Impf. 3 ms. יִנָּבֵא Am 3:8 + 9 times Impf.; Imv. הִנָּבֵא Am 7:15 + 27 times; Inf. הִנָּבֵא Am 7:13; sf. הִנָּֽבְאוֹ Zc 13:3; הִנָּֽבְאֹתוֹ Zc 13:4, + 4 times Inf.; Pt. נִבָּא Je 26:18 + (Ges§ 93 oo);— e.g. Jeremiah 20:1
- 1. prophesy under influence of divine spirit:
- a. in the ecstatic state, with song 1 S 10:11; 19:20 and music 1 Ch 25:1, 2, 3. e.g. 1 Samuel 10:11
- b. the word of י׳: abs. Am 2:12; 3:8 (emend. יחרד We Now needless), 7:12, 13 Jo 3:1 Je 19:14; 26:18; 28:9; 32:3 Ez 11:13; 12:27; 21:19; 37:7; 38:17 but especially in phr. הִנָּבֵא וְאָמַרְתָּ Ez 12:27; 21:14, 33; 30:2; 34:2; 36:3; 37:7, 12; 38:14, 17; c. acc. Je 20:1; 25:30; 28:6; sq. עַל against Am 7:16 Je 25:13; 26:20 Ez 4:7; 11:4; 13:17; 25:2; 28:21; 29:2; 34:2; 35:2; 36:6; 38:2; 39:1; unto Ez 37:4; אֶל unto Am 7:15 Je 26:11, 12; 28:8 Ez 36:1; 37:9; against 6:2; 13:2; 21:2, 7; בְּשֵׁם י׳ Je 11:21; 14:15; 23:25; 26:9. e.g. Amos 2:12
- 2. of false prophets: abs. Je 23:21 Ez 13:2 Zc 13:3(×2), 4; c. acc. 1 K 22:12 = 2 Ch 18:11; שֶׁקֶר Je 14:14; 23:25; 27:10, 14, 16; 29:21; לַשָּׁ֑קֶר 27:15; בַּשֶּׁקֶר 5:31; 20:6, 29:9; נִבְּאֵי הַשּׁ׳ 23:26, cf. v 32; c. לְ 14:16; 23:16; 27:15, 16; 29:31; 37:19; sq. אֶל concerning Ez 13:16. e.g. Jeremiah 23:21
- 3. cf. heathen prophets, בַּבַּעַל Je 2:8. e.g. Jeremiah 2:8
Hithpael
- Pf. 2 ms. הִתְנַבִּיתָ 1 S 10:6; 1 s. הִנַּבֵּאתִי Ez 37:10; 3 pl. הִנַּבְּאוּ Je 23:13; Impf. יִתְנַבֵּא 1 S 10:10 + 7 times; 3 mpl. יִתְנַבְּאוּ Nu 11:25 + 5 times; Inf. הִתְנַבּוֹת 1 S 10:13; Pt. מִתְנַבֵּא Je 26:20 + 9 times Pt.;— e.g. 1 Samuel 10:6
- 1. prophesy under influence of divine spirit:
- a. in the ecstatic state Nu 11:25, 26, 27 (J), with music 1 S 10:5, 6, 10, 13, in frenzy 1 S 19:20, 21(×2), 23, 24; excited to violence 1 S 18:10 (= מְשֻׁגָּע mad 2 K 9:11); Je 29:26. e.g. Numbers 11:25
- b. apart from ecstatic state, abs. Ez 37:10, c. לְ 1 K 22:8 Je 29:27; על 1 K 22:18 = 2 Ch 18:17, 2 Ch 18:7; 20:37; בְּשֵׁם י׳ Je 26:20. e.g. Ezekiel 37:10
- 2. of heathen prophets of Baal in ecstatic state 1 K 18:29; בַּבַּעַל Je 23:13. e.g. 1 Kings 18:29
- 3. of false prophets 1 K 22:10 = 2 Ch 18:9, Je 14:14 Ez 13:17. e.g. 1 Kings 22:10
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
vb. denom. prophesy (in oldest forms, of religious ecstasy with or without song and music; later, essentially religious instruction, with occasional predictions);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
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.
*נִבָּא
- eggs of lice, Var. in Ar. for אִנְבָּא II.
נָבָא
- , v. נבי II
נבי II
- to burst forth, blow.
- to be inspired, to prophesy. Snh. 39ᵇ יבא … ויִנָּבֵא על וכ׳ let Obadiah come … and prophesy against &c.; a. e.
- same. Ex. R. s. 4. כמה … שלא להִתְנַבְּאוֹת ונ׳ וכ׳ how much Jeremiah desired not to be a prophet, and yet he prophesied against his will. Sot. 12ᵇ נִתְנַבְּאָה שלא מדעתה she prophesied unwittingly. Ib. מִתְנַבְּאָה ואינה וכ׳ she prophesied but did not know what she prophesied. Meg. 14ᵃ ארְבעים … נִתְנַבְּאוּ להם וכ׳ forty-eight prophets and seven prophetesses prophesied to Israel &c. B. Bath. 15ᵇ; a. fr.
נְבֵי
- Ithpa. אִיתְנַבָּא, אִיתְנַבֵּי, אִינַּבֵּי same. Targ. Num. XI, 25, sq.; a. fr.—Meg. 14ᵇ ובמקום דקאי ירמיהו היכי מִיתְנַבְּיָא איהי how could she (Huldah) dare to prophesy in the same place with Jeremiah? Snh. 96ᵇ דאינ׳ להו לישראל בחורבתא וכ׳ who had prophesied to Israel the destruction of the Temple. B. Bath. 15ᵇ אִינַּבּוּיֵ אינבי לאומות העולם (read. אינַבּוּ; Ms. M. אִינַּבִּיאוּ) they prophesied for the gentiles; ib. הכא נמי איוב אינבוי אינבי לעכ"ום so Job likewise prophesied for the gentiles. Ib. [read:] אטו כולהו נביאי מי לא אִינַּבּוּ וכ׳ (Ms. M. אינביאו, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) did not all prophets prophesy for the gentiles?
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 77 distinct written forms H5012 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 17 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5012, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 94 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 102 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
- Numbers 11:25
- 1 Samuel 10:5
- 1 Kings 18:29
- 1 Chronicles 25:1
- 2 Chronicles 18:7
- Jeremiah 2:8
- Ezekiel 4:7
- Amos 2:12
- Zechariah 13:3
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.
