נָסָה
to test
also: try, prove, tempt, assay fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Piel 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. Here: ‘test’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
Form
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Cohortative
- A first-person volitional form expressing wish or resolve (“let me / let us write”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
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”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
1 distinct verse where H5254 appears in the Niphal stem, across 1 book. 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.
Job 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.
At its core, נסה (nâçâh) means “to test.” Its English rendering has broadened — “prove” classically, “test” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 34 verses in 13 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Genesis 22:1. Beyond its headline sense, its full sense range takes in “try”, “prove”, and “tempt”. Dig into 34-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5254 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 →
- 34
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 34 distinct verses.
- 13 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 13 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #990
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 990 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 34 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Deuteronomy 7 verses 21%
- Psalms 6 verses 18%
- Exodus 5 verses 15%
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 34 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 14 verses · 41%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 13 verses · 38%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 7 verses · 21%
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: Prove 6×, Tempted 3×, They tempted 3×
- American Standard Version: Prove 5×, They tempted 3×, I may prove 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Test 7×, Tested 4×, I will test 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Test 6×, They tested 5×, Testing of 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5254 across 36 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 H5254 across 35 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 23 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 H5254 across 36 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 H5254 across 46 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.
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.
Piel
- Pf. 3 ms. נִסָּה Dt 4:34 + 3 times; sf. נִסָּהוּ Ex 15:25; 3 fs. נִסְּתָה Dt 28:56; 1 s. נִסִּיתִי Ec 7:23, + 4 times Pf.; Impf. 3 ms. sf. יְנַסֵּם Dn 1:14; 1 s. אֲנְסֶּה Ju 6:39; sf. אֲנַסְּכָה Ec 2:2; 3 mpl. יְנַסּוּ Nu 14:22; 2 mpl. תְּנַסּ֑וּן Ex 17:2, + 7 times Impf.; Imv. נַס Dn 1:12; sf. נַסֵּנִי ψ 26:2; Inf. cstr. נַסּוֹת Ex 20:20, + 8 times Inf.; Pt. מְנַסֶּה Dt 13:4;— e.g. Deuteronomy 4:34
- 1. test, try (syn. בחן), abs. 1 S 17:39 (equipment); c. בְּ Ju 6:39 Ec 2:1; c. acc. Dn 1:12, 14; acc. + בְּ 1 K 10:1 = 2 Ch 9:1, Ec 2:1; 7:23. e.g. 1 Samuel 17:39
- 2. attempt, essay, try to do a thing, c. Inf. Dt 4:34 (c. לְ) 28:56; c. acc. Jb 4:2 (venture a word). e.g. Deuteronomy 4:34
- 3. test, try, prove, tempt [but not in modern sense of the word: v. Dr Dt 6:16; ψ 453, 483]
- a. God tests or proves Abr. Gn 22:1 (E), Isr. Ex 15:25; 20:20 (E), 16:4 (J), Dt 8:2, 16; 13:4; c. בְּ Ju 2:22; 3:1, 4; tribe of Levi Dt 33:8 (poem); Hezekiah 2 Ch 32:31; psalmist ψ 26:2. e.g. Genesis 22:1
- b. Isr. tests, or tries God: Ex 17:2, 7; Nu 14:22 (J), Dt 6:16 ψ 78:18, 41, 56; 95:9; 106:14; so Ahaz, Is 7:12. e.g. Exodus 17:2
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. Pi. test, try (NH id., Pi.; 𝔗 Pa. נַסִּי; Syriac Pa. ܢܰܣܺܝ; cf. Ethiopic መንሱት temptation);—
— 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.
נסי ²
- (cmp. preced.) to lift up.
- 1. same; 2) (denom. of נֵס) to put up a sign; to ask for a test (cmp. Is. VII, 11, sq.); to try, test. Gen. R. s. 55, beg. (interpret. נִסָּה, Gen. XXII, 1) בשביל לנַסּוֹתָן … לגדלן וכ׳ in order to lift them up (as a standard) for the world, to raise them &c., v. נֵס. Ib. (ref. to Gen. l. c.) R. J. says גדלו כנס וכ׳ he raised him &c.; R. A. says, נ׳ אותן בוודאי he really tried him, v. וַדַּאי. Ib. אין הקב"ה מְנַסֶּה וכ׳ the Lord does not test the wicked, but only the righteous; ib. s. 32; s. 34. Mekh. B’shall., Vayassa, s. 1 (ref. to Ex. XV, 25) גדולה(ל) שם נשא לו there he raised him (Moses) to greatness; … שם נסה המקום את ישראל there God tested Israel. Ib. Yithro, Baḥod., s. 9 לבעבור נַסּוֹת אתכם בשביל לגדל אתכם (Ex. XX, 28) ‘to lift you up’, to raise you. Arakh. 15ᵃ עשר נסיונות נִיסּוּ וכ׳ ten times did our ancestors try the Lord; Ab. V, 4; a. fr. e.g. Isaiah 7:11
- to be tried. Ib. 3. Yalk. Ps. 777 הראשונים מִתְנַסִּים ביד הקב"ה … אבל האחרונים נִתְנַסּוּ וכ׳ the ancients were tried by the Lord …, but the latter generations were tried by the nations; a. fr.
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 32 distinct written forms H5254 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 H5254, 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 30 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 34 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 22:1
- Exodus 15:25
- Numbers 14:22
- Deuteronomy 4:34
- Judges 2:22
- 1 Kings 10:1
- 2 Chronicles 9:1
- Job 4:2
- Psalms 26:2
- Ecclesiastes 2:1
- Isaiah 7:12
- Daniel 1:12
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.
