נְחֹ֫שֶׁת
bronze
‘bronze’ 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
- 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
- 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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Dual
- Exactly two — for natural pairs and some measures of time.
8 verses where H5178 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of 2 Kings. 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.
2 Kings
- 2 Kings 16:14 הַ/נְּחֹשֶׁת֮ ptcl def.art + n c fs The brazen altar, which was before Yahweh, he brought from the forefront of the house, from between his altar and the house of Yahweh, and put it on the north side of his altar.
- 2 Kings 16:15 הַ/נְּחֹ֛שֶׁת ptcl def.art + n c fs King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, and the evening meal-offering, and the king's burnt offering, and his meal-offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their meal-offering, and their drink-offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice: but the brazen altar shall be for me to inquire by.
- 2 Kings 16:17 הַ/נְּחֹ֖שֶׁת ptcl def.art + n c fs King Ahaz cut off the panels of the bases, and removed the basin from off them, and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stone.
- 2 Kings 18:4 הַ/נְּחֹ֜שֶׁת ptcl def.art + n c fs He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah: and he broke in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for to those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan.
- 2 Kings 25:7 בַֽ/נְחֻשְׁתַּ֔יִם prep det + n c fd They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon.
- 2 Kings 25:13 הַ/נְּחֹ֜שֶׁת הַ/נְּחֹ֛שֶׁת נְחֻשְׁתָּ֖/ם ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp The pillars of brass that were in the house of Yahweh, and the bases and the brazen sea that were in the house of Yahweh, did the Chaldeans break in pieces, and carried the brass of them to Babylon.
- 2 Kings 25:14 הַ/נְּחֹ֛שֶׁת ptcl def.art + n c fs The pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass with which they ministered, took they away.
- 2 Kings 25:17 נְחֹשֶׁת֮ נְחֹ֑שֶׁת n c fs n c fs The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and a capital of brass was on it; and the height of the capital was three cubits, with network and pomegranates on the capital round about, all of brass: and like to these had the second pillar with network.
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 noun נחשת centers on the idea of “bronze.” Where the King James Version says “brass,” newer translations reach for “bronze” (Berean Standard Bible); the renderings breakdown has the detail. It appears 119 verses across 21 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. The word gravitates to Exodus (29%), then 2 Chronicles and 1 Kings. The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. 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 H5178 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 →
- 119
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 119 distinct verses.
- 21 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 21 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #323
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 323 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 119 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Exodus 34 verses 29%
- 2 Chronicles 14 verses 12%
- 1 Kings 11 verses 9%
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 119 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 51 verses · 43%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 42 verses · 35%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 26 verses · 22%
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 2 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†: Brass 86×, Brasen 24×, Fetters 4×
- American Standard Version†: Brass 86×, Brazen 21×, Fetters 5×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Bronze 117×, Bronze shackles 5×, Copper 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Bronze 112×, Were bronze 4×, Bronze of 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5178 across 141† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 18 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 H5178 across 140† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 21 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 H5178 across 139† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5178 across 133† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 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
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.
נחשת I copper, bronze
- 1. copper
- 2. fetters of copper or bronze
- 3. as less in value than gold but more than wood
- 4. fig. of pitiless sky
נחשת II lust, harlotry
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. נְחֹ֫שֶׁת 137 n.m. copper, bronze
II. [ נְחֹ֫שֶׁת ] n.[f.] Ez 16:36 where context favours mng. lust, harlotry, or specif. sens. obscoen.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from נחושה (nᵉchûwshâh) (H5154) — bronze.
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.
נְחוֹשֶׁת
- (b. h.)
- 1. copper. Zeb. 22ᵃ (ref. to Ex. XXX, 18) לנ׳ הקשתיו וכ׳ I compared it (the foot of the laver with the laver itself) with regard to its being of copper, but not with regard to anything else. Pesik. Ekhah, p. 122ᵇ מטבעות של נ׳ וכ׳ silver-plated copper coins. Keth. VII, 10, v. צָרַף; a. fr. e.g. Exodus 30:18
- 2. bronze, v. next w.
- 3. copper vessels. Y. Keth. X, 33ᵈ bot. להיות גובין מן הנ׳ וכ׳ to seize (for the widowhood) copper vessels and dining plates.
- 4. the (copper) bottom or rim. Sabb. 41ᵃ מפני שנְחוּשְׁתָּהּ מחממתה because its double bottom gives out heat to warm the water (even after the removal of the coals). Kel. VIII, 3; IX, 1; 3 נ׳ של תנור the (copper) rim of the stove. [Yoma 38ᵃ, v. next w.]
- 5. the polished, smooth side of skin (קֶלֶף). Y. Meg. I, 71ᵈ top מקום נְחוּשְׁתּוֹ on its smooth side, opp. מקום שיער the hairy side.
נְחשֶׁת
- , v. נְחוֹשֶׁת, נְחוּשְׁתָּן.
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 48 distinct written forms H5178 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5178, 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
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. 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 111 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 119 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 4:22
- Exodus 25:3
- Numbers 21:9
- Deuteronomy 8:9
- Joshua 6:19
- Judges 16:21
- 1 Samuel 17:5
- 2 Samuel 3:34
- 1 Kings 4:13
- 2 Kings 16:14
- 1 Chronicles 15:19
- 2 Chronicles 1:5
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.
