אֶ֫לֶף
thousand
‘thousand’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
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).
Gender
- Both
- Attested as both masculine and feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
17 verses where H505 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of 1 Samuel. Filtered view — show all forms. 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 Samuel
- 1 Samuel 4:2 אֲלָפִ֖ים adj Cardinal number bp The Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was struck before the Philistines; and they killed of the army in the field about four thousand men.
- 1 Samuel 4:10 אֶ֖לֶף adj Cardinal number bs The Philistines fought, and Israel was struck, and they fled every man to his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen.
- 1 Samuel 6:19 אֶ֖לֶף adj Cardinal number bs He struck of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of Yahweh, he struck of the people fifty thousand seventy men; and the people mourned, because Yahweh had struck the people with a great slaughter.
- 1 Samuel 8:12 אֲלָפִ֖ים adj Cardinal number bp and he will appoint them to him for captains of thousands, and captains of fifties; and [he will set some] to plow his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the instruments of his chariots.
- 1 Samuel 11:8 אֶ֔לֶף אָֽלֶף adj Cardinal number bs adj Cardinal number bs He numbered them in Bezek; and the children of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand.
- 1 Samuel 13:2 אֲלָפִים֮ אַלְפַּ֗יִם וְ/אֶ֗לֶף adj Cardinal number bp adj Cardinal number bp conj + Adjective Cardinal number bs Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel, of which two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in the Mount of Bethel, and one thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.
- 1 Samuel 13:5 אֶ֤לֶף אֲלָפִים֙ adj Cardinal number bs adj Cardinal number bp The Philistines assembled themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea-shore in multitude: and they came up, and encamped in Michmash, eastward of Beth Aven.
- 1 Samuel 15:4 אֶ֖לֶף אֲלָפִ֖ים adj Cardinal number bs adj Cardinal number bp Saul summoned the people, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.
- 1 Samuel 17:5 אֲלָפִ֥ים adj Cardinal number bp He had a helmet of brass on his head, and he was clad with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass.
- 1 Samuel 17:18 הָ/אָ֑לֶף ptcl def.art + Adjective Cardinal number bs and bring these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand, and look how your brothers fare, and take their pledge.
- 1 Samuel 18:8 הָ/אֲלָפִ֑ים ptcl def.art + Adjective Cardinal number bp Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?
- 1 Samuel 18:13 אָ֑לֶף adj Cardinal number bs Therefore Saul removed him from him, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people.
- 1 Samuel 22:7 אֲלָפִ֖ים adj Cardinal number bp Saul said to his servants who stood about him, Hear now, you Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give everyone of you fields and vineyards, will he make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds,
- 1 Samuel 24:2 אֲלָפִ֛ים adj Cardinal number bp Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men on the rocks of the wild goats.
- 1 Samuel 25:2 אֲלָפִ֖ים וְ/אֶ֣לֶף adj Cardinal number bp conj + Adjective Cardinal number bs There was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
- 1 Samuel 26:2 אֲלָפִ֥ים adj Cardinal number bp Then Saul arose, and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph.
- 1 Samuel 29:2 וְ/לַ/אֲלָפִ֑ים conj + prep + Adjective Cardinal number bp The lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds, and by thousands; and David and his men passed on in the rearward with Achish.
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.
אלף — transliterated ʼeleph — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “thousand.” Older and newer Bibles part ways — “thousand” in the King James Version, “were” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. It appears 391 verses across 25 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 20:16. The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 391-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H505 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 →
- 391
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 391 distinct verses.
- 25 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 25 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #97
- by frequency
- Top 100 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 97 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 391 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Numbers 82 verses 21%
- 1 Chronicles 60 verses 15%
- 2 Chronicles 38 verses 10%
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 391 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 156 verses · 40%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 135 verses · 35%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 100 verses · 26%
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†: Thousand 406×, Thousands 32×, Two thousand 19×
- American Standard Version†: Thousand 389×, Thousands 35×, Two thousand 19×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Thousand 114×, Thousands 31×, Two thousand 9×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Were 61×, Thousand 58×, And 35×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H505 across 502† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 19 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 3 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H505 across 501† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 36 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 H505 across 200† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 22 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 306 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H505 across 294† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 22 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 239 further occurrences.
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 6 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.
אלף I
- 1. numeral:
- a. used with noun alone; mostly before noun Nu 35:4 Jos 7:3 Ne 3:13 1 Ch 18:4 +; after noun (late) 1 Ch 12:35 + 6 times Ch Ezr Ne; א׳ בָּאַמָּה Nu 35:5(×4) Ez 47:3 (del. Co); the noun always pl. when preceding, sometimes when following, 1 S 25:2 1 K 3:4 2 K 18:23 = Is 36:8 2 Ch 30:24 ψ 90:4 Jb 42:12 Ec 6:6; elsewhere sg. אישׁ Ju 9:49; 15:15, 16 Jos 7:3 +; אַמָּה Nu 35:4 + (so SI); דּוֹר Dt 7:9 +, cf. 1 Ch 18:4; 19:6 2 K 15:19 Jb 42:12 Ct 4:4 Is 7:23, noun sometimes coll.; א׳ pl. cstr. Mi 6:7 ψ 119:72 Gn 24:60; noun not expr. (or not fully) Gn 20:16 Nu 31:5, 6 +; distrib. אֶלֶף … אֶלָף Nu 31:4; multipl. Dt 1:11 א׳ פְּעָמִים; indef. for great no. (pl.) Ex 20:6; 34:7 Dt 5:10 Je 32:18, (sg.) Dt 32:30 Ec 6:6 +. e.g. Numbers 35:4
- b. א׳ + other num. usually precedes it Ex 38:25 + often; but foll. רִבּוֹא Ezr 2:64 + 2 times; it follows also smaller no. Nu 3:50 1 K 5:12 (so SI); the noun foll. in sg. Ex 38:25 + 8 times; pl. 2 S 8:4 + 2 times; noun precedes, in pl. (late) Dn 12:12 + 2 times; noun not expr. Ex 38:28 + often e.g. Exodus 38:25
- c. א׳ × other no. always foll. Ex 12:37 +; usual order is no. × א׳ + additional no. (if any) + noun (ifexpr.) Nu. 31:52 Ju 20:35 cf. Ex 12:37 2 K 3:4(×2) +; less often noun + no. × א׳ Nu 31:33 1 K 8:63 +; (other combin. v. Ex 38:26 Nu 26:51; 31:32 Ez 48:30 1 Ch 29:7 etc.); א׳ usually sg. Nu 11:21 +; except after units, where pl. abs. Nu 1:46 Ju 20:34 + (so MI); seld. pl. cstr. Ex 32:28 Ju 4:10 Jb 1:3(×2); (noun mostly sg. when foll. Ju 4:10 1 K 12:21 +, yet pl. Jos 4:13 1 S 13:5 +; when preceding it is pl. 1 Ch 5:21 +, or coll. Nu 31:33 1 S 25:2 1 K 8:63 2 Ch 7:5 +); אֶלָף אֲלָפִים 1 Ch 21:5; 22:14 2 Ch 14:8; אַלְפֵי שִׁנְאָן ψ 68:18, cf. שִׁנְאָן; בְּהַרְרֵי אָ֑לֶף ψ 50:10, read אֵל cf. ψ 36:7, Ol Bi Che; yet v. Hup De.— e.g. Exodus 12:37
- 10,000 = עֲשֶׂרֶת אֲלָפִים etc. Ju 1:4; 3:29 1 K 5:28 1 Ch 29:7 +; less often רִבּוֹ, רְבָבָה etc. q.v. e.g. Judges 1:4
- 2. a thousand, a company of 1000 men, as united under one superior, or leader, hence שַׂר א׳ (שָׂרֵי) Ex 18:21, 25 cf. Nu 31:14 +; cf. רָאשֵׁי א׳ יִשְׂרָאֵל Nu 1:16; 10:4 Jos 22:21, 30 & v. infr.; cf. also 1 S 29:2; especially family, etc. Ju 6:15 1 S 10:19 (‖ שֵׁבֶט & cf. מִשְׁפַּחַת v 21); cf. Mi 5:1;—Nu 10:36 (רִבְבוֹת אַלְפֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל) 31:5 Jos 22:14 1 S 23:23 apparently shew transit. to this technical use. e.g. Exodus 18:21
אלף II loc. city in Benj., הָא׳ Jos 18
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. n.m. ψ 8:8; only pl. cattle (Ph. אלף, Assyrian alpu, COTGloss.)—אֲלָפִים Pr 14:4 Is 30:24 used in tillage; subject to man ψ 8:8 (‖ צֹנֶה); their increase שְׁגַר אֲלָפֶיךָ a blessing Dt 7:13; 28:4, 18, 51 (‖ all עַשְׁתְּרֹת צֹאנֶ֑ךָ).
II. n.m. Ju 6:15 thousand (אלף MI, SI, Sab. DHMZMG 1875, 615; Arabic أَلْفٌ, Aramaic ܐܳܠܶܦ, אֲלַף, אלפיא; cf. Ethiopic እልፍ mille, myrias)*.—(אָ֑׳)א׳ Gn 20:16 +; sf. אַלְפִּי †Ju 6:15; du. אַלְפַּיִם Nu 4:36 +; pl. אֲלָפִים Ex 18:21 +; cstr. אַלְפֵי Ex 32:28 +; אֲלָפֶיךָ Dt 7:13 + 2 times; אֲלָפָיו Qr 1 S 18:7 + 2 times (Kt ־פו)—a thousand.
III. n.pr.loc. city in Benj., הָא׳ Jos 18:28; perhaps Lifta NW. from Jerus. Surveyiii. 18.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אלף (ʼeleph) (H504) — cattle.
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.
אֶלֶף
- (b. h.) thousand. Du. אַלְפַּיִם.—Pl. אֲלָפִים.—א׳ אלפים a million. Gen. R. s. 8 שני א׳; a. fr.—Ex. R. s. 5 אַלְפַּיִם two thousand (men); a. e.
אֲלַף I
- Targ. O. Ex. XXXVIII, 25 אַלַּף ed. Berl. (Y. אלפא); a. fr.—Snh. 95ᵇ חד א׳ one thousand. Bekh. 8ᵇ מאה א׳ זוזי one hundred thousand zuz; a. fr.—Pl. אַלְפִין, אַלְפַיָּא. Targ. Ex. XXXVIII, 26; a. fr. Targ. I Sam. XVIII, 8; a. fr.—Y. Dem. VII, 26ᵇ bot.; a. fr.
אֲלַף II
- , √לף to join, be joined) to become used; to learn, study, train one’s self.—אֲלִיף accustomed, used to. Targ. I Sam. XVII, 39. Targ. O. Num. XXII, 30.—Targ. Deut. V, 1; a. fr. (v. also יְלֵיף).—Cant. R. to II, 2 צבי רבי דייליף would you like to study? B. Bath. 111ᵇ top גוד לית דין צבי למילף take me away from here, this man has no desire to learn (but only to argue). Taan. 4ᵃ man is bound למֵילַף נפשיה בניחותא [prob. למַלֵּיף, v. infra] to train himself to be gentle; a. fr.
- to train, teach. Targ. Ps. XVIII, 35 מַלֵּיף (= מְאַלֵּף). Targ. Prov. XI, 25; a. fr.—Koh. R. to IX, 10 thou didst emigrate למילף for the sake of studying, והוא גלי לאַלָּפָא but he emigrated for the sake of teaching. Y. Dem. I, 22ᵃ top ולא כן אַלְּפָן רבי (not איל׳) did you not teach us thus?—א׳ זכו, v. infra.
- as Pa. Lev. R. s. 30 (מַלֵּיף) מוֹלִיף עלי זכו offers arguments in my favor.
- to exercise, practice, exert one’s self. Targ. Is. II, 4; XXVI, 9.
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 100 distinct written forms H505 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 40 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H505, 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
Derived from this word
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 5 — 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 363 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 391 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 20:16
- Exodus 12:37
- Numbers 1:16
- Deuteronomy 1:11
- Joshua 3:4
- Judges 1:4
- 1 Samuel 4:2
- 2 Samuel 6:1
- 1 Kings 3:4
- 2 Kings 3:4
- 1 Chronicles 5:18
- 2 Chronicles 1:2
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.
