נָהַל
to lead
also: give rest, lead with care, cause to rest 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
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem. Here: ‘lead to a watering-place’
- Hithpael
- The reflexive or reciprocal stem (the subject acts on itself).
Form
- 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”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Cohortative
- A first-person volitional form expressing wish or resolve (“let me / let us write”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H5095 appears in the Book of Isaiah — 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.
Isaiah
- Isaiah 40:11 יְנַהֵֽל Piel impf 3ms He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom, [and] will gently lead those who have their young.
- Isaiah 49:10 יְנַהֲלֵֽ/ם Piel impf 3ms + sfx pers 3mp They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun strike them: for he who has mercy on them will lead them, even by springs of water will he guide them.
- Isaiah 51:18 מְנַהֵ֣ל Piel ptcp.act ms There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth; neither is there any who takes her by the hand among all the sons who she has brought up.
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.
The Hebrew verb נהל centers on the idea of “to lead.” Debuting at Genesis 33:14, it then recurs through the corpus. Spanning 10 verses in 5 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah dominates its distribution — 3 of 10 verses. The verb spans 2 stems, from Piel to Hithpael. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5095 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,342
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,342 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 10 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Isaiah 3 verses 30%
- Genesis 2 verses 20%
- 2 Chronicles 2 verses 20%
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 10 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 40%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 30%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 30%
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: All other and guided 1×, Carried 1×, Guide 1×
- American Standard Version: All others 1×, Guide me 1×, He fed 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Guide me 1×, He gave them rest 1×, He gently leads 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Guide me 1×, Guiding 1×, He gave them rest 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5095 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5095 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5095 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5095 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 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.
Piel
- 1. lead to a watering-place (or station), and cause to rest there
- 2. lead or bring to a station, a goal
- 3. lead, guide
- 4. give rest to
- 5. refresh with food
Hithpael
- . journey by stations, stages
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
[ נָהַל ] vb. Pi. lead, guide to a watering-place or station, and cuase to rest there; bring to a station or place of rest; lead, guide; refresh
— 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.
נָהַל
- (b. h.), Pi. נֵיהֵל to quiet, support, lead (v. Del. Proleg., p. 17 sq.). Num. R. s. 12 (interpret. Ex. XV, 13) נֵיהֲלָם בזכות התורה וכ׳ he supported them for the sake of the Law which they accepted, until the sanctuary was erected. e.g. Exodus 15:13
נְהַל
- (Syr. נחל, P. Sm. 2336; cmp. נְהֵי I) to shake, sift (cmp. Am. IX, 9). Bets. 29ᵇ דביתהו … נַהֲלָא וכ׳ the wife of R. J. sifted flour (on the Holy Day) on the back of &c., v. מְהוּלְתָּא I; a. e.—Part. pass. נְהִיל, נְהִילָא. Ḥull. 51ᵇ. קטמא נ׳ sifted ashes (which bake and harden when piled up). Ber. 6ᵃ. Taan. 9ᵇ (עיבא) נ׳ ‘a sifted cloud’, a form of light and scattered clouds. e.g. Amos 9:9
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 10 distinct written forms H5095 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֶֽתְנָהֲלָ֣ה | Verb, Hithpael, Cohortative, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Genesis 33:14 | 1 |
| וַ/יְנַהֲל֤וּ/ם | Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | 2 Chronicles 28:15 | 1 |
| וַ/יְנַהֲלֵ֤/ם | Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Genesis 47:17 | 1 |
| וַֽ/יְנַהֲלֵ֖/ם | Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | 2 Chronicles 32:22 | 1 |
| וּֽ/תְנַהֲלֵֽ/נִי | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 31:3 | 1 |
| יְנַהֲלֵֽ/ם | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Isaiah 49:10 | 1 |
| יְנַהֲלֵֽ/נִי | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 23:2 | 1 |
| יְנַהֵֽל | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Isaiah 40:11 | 1 |
| מְנַהֵ֣ל | Verb, Piel, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 51:18 | 1 |
| נֵהַ֥לְתָּ | Verb, Piel, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Exodus 15:13 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5095, 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 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 10 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.
