נָחֵת
to descend
‘to descend’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
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.
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘go down’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
Form
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- 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”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms 10 distinct
- Verb, Piel, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Piel, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Piel, Infinitive Absolute 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (10%)
+2 more forms (2 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 10 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5181 appears — 9 distinct verses across 7 books. 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 verse
2 Samuel 1 verse
Job 1 verse
Psalms 3 verses
- Psalms 18:34 וְֽ/נִחֲתָ֥ה conj + Piel wpf 3fs He teaches my hands to war; So that my arms bend a bow of bronze.
- Psalms 38:2 נִ֣חֲתוּ וַ/תִּנְחַ֖ת Niphal pf 3cp conj + Qal wimpf 3fs For your arrows have pierced me, Your hand presses hard on me.
- Psalms 65:10 נַחֵ֣ת Piel inf.abs You drench its furrows. You level its ridges. You soften it with showers. You bless it with a crop.
Proverbs 1 verse
Jeremiah 1 verse
Joel 1 verse
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.
נחת (nâchath) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “to descend.” Across 4 stems, its meaning turns on the binyan (Qal, Niphal). Spanning 9 verses in 7 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Psalms dominates its distribution — 3 of 9 verses. Scripture first uses it in 1 Samuel 2:10. 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 H5181 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 →
- 9
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 9 distinct verses.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 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 9 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 9 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 56%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 44%
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: Is broken 2×
- American Standard Version: Do bend 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Can bend 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: And 3×, Bend 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5181 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5181 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H5181 across 11 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5181 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 5 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.
Qal
- 1. go down, descend
- 2. fig. descend in chastisement
Niphal
- . = penetrate
Piel
- . cause to descend = press down
Hiphil
- . thither bring down thy heroes
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
[ נָחֵת ] vb. (Aram. and poet.) go down, descend
— 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.
נַחַת
- 1. rest, tray, stand (v. אַנְחוּתָה). Ḥag. 26ᵇ; Men. 96ᵇ, a. e. כלי עץ העשוי לנ׳ a wooden utensil intended for resting things on it (table &c.). Gen. R. s. 25; s. 33 לשם נ׳ התיבה נקרא Noah was named from the resting of the ark (Gen. VIII, 4). Yeb. 103ᵇ סנדל של נ׳ ע"ז Ar. (in ed. our w. omitted) a sandal used as a rest for an idol. e.g. Genesis 8:4
- 2. ease; gentleness; comfort. Erub. 83ᵇ שלזה תשמישו בנ׳ which one neighbor can make use of with ease, opp. בקשה with difficulty. Ber. 56ᵇ בנ׳ at a slow trot, opp. ברדוף at full speed. Snh. 92ᵃ, v. נָהַג; a. fr.—נ׳ רוח gratification, pleasure. Keth. 95ᵃ תימא נ׳ ר׳ עשיתי לבעלי she may say, I did it only to gratify my husband (but did not mean to sell). Ḥag. 16ᵇ כדי לעשות נ׳ ר׳ לנשים to let the (offering) women have the satisfaction (of putting their hands on the sacrifices). Ber. 17ᵃ ועושה נ׳ ר׳ ליוצרו and acts so as to please his Creator; a. fr.
נָחַת
- to be put down, to go down.
- same, to be humbled, bow. Y. Ber. IV, beg. 7ᵃ (ref. to Mal. II, 5) קודם … נ׳ הוא before he mentions the Name (in the benediction), he must bow.—V. חָתָא. e.g. Malachi 2:5
נְחַת
- , to go down. Impf. יֵחוֹת, inf. מֵיחָת, מֵיחוּת, imper. חוֹת. Targ. Ex. XV, 5. Targ. Y. Gen. XLIV, 26; a. fr.—[Targ. Y. II, Gen. XLIX, 23 למִנְחֲתָא, some ed. למִנְחַתָּא, read: למְנַחֲתָא Pa.]—Sabb. 41ᵃ כי נָחֵית when one is going down (to bathe). Ib. כי קא נָחֲתֵי when they were going down. Meg. 25ᵃ ההוא דנ׳ וכ׳ a man went down (to the praying desk) in the presence of &c. B. Kam. 39ᵃ נ׳ לעומק וכ׳ goes down to the depth of the law; a. fr.—B. Bath. 133ᵃ נַחֲתָא לדיקלא she seizes the palm-tree for her widowhood, v. יָרַד.
- 1. to put down. Yoma 47ᵃ ונַחֲתֵיה וכ׳ and let him put down the pan; v. חֲתֵי I.
- 2. to lower, remove. Targ. Y. II, Gen. XLIX, 23 (v. supra; Y. I למַחְתָּא Af.).
- to put down, rest; to let come down. Targ. O. Deut. XXVIII, 56 (h. text הַצֵּג). Targ. Y. I Gen. XLIX, 23, v. supra. Targ. O. ib. II, 5. Targ. Ez. XXIII, 15; a. fr.—Part. pass. מַחַת (מָחֵית); f. מַתֲתָא; pl. מַחֲתִין; מַחֲתָן placed, resting, lying; inlaid. Targ. O. Gen. VIII, 11 (ed. Vien. נָחִית; Y. מְחִית). Targ. Jer. XXIV, 1. Targ. Esth. VIII, 15; a. fr.—Pesik. B’shall., p. 91ᵃ והוא מַנְחֵית לכון and he will take bread down out of the oven (cmp. רָדָה II). Taan. 21ᵇ הוה מָחֵית גברי וכ׳ used to place men apart &c. Sabb. 101ᵃ גוד אָחֵית וכ׳, v. נְגַד. Ned. 91ᵇ הוו מַחֲתָן תחלי וכ׳ cress was deposited there. B. Bath. 69ᵃ, a. fr.
- 1. to be brought down. Targ. Gen. XXXIX, 1. Targ. Ez. XXXI, 17; a. fr.—Y. Peah XIII, 21ᵃ bot. איתנחת מן ניכסוי became poor, v. יָרַד; Y. Keth. XI, 34ᵇ bot.
- 2. (of an argument) to be settled. B. Bath. 129ᵃ אִנַּחֲתַת לן חדא, v. נוּחַ Ithpe.
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 H5181 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5181, 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 7 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 9 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.
