נָעַל
to lock
‘to lock’ 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 Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘and I shod thee with’
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“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.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (25%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 times (25%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Passive, Feminine, Plural, Absolute 1 time (13%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 8 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5274 appears — 7 distinct verses across 5 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.
Judges 2 verses
- Judges 3:23 וְ/נָעָֽל conj + Qal pf 3ms Then Ehud went forth into the porch, and shut the doors of the upper room on him, and locked them.
- Judges 3:24 נְעֻל֑וֹת Qal ptcp.pass fp Now when he was gone out, his servants came; and they saw, and, behold, the doors of the upper room were locked; and they said, Surely he is covering his feet in the upper chamber.
2 Samuel 2 verses
- 2 Samuel 13:17 וּ/נְעֹ֥ל conj + Qal impv 2ms Then he called his servant who ministered to him, and said, Put now this woman out from me, and bolt the door after her.
- 2 Samuel 13:18 וְ/נָעַ֥ל conj + Qal pf 3ms She had a garment of various colors on her; for with such robes were the king's daughters who were virgins dressed. Then his servant brought her out, and bolted the door after her.
2 Chronicles 1 verse
Song of Solomon 1 verse
Ezekiel 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.
נעל (nâʻal) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “to lock.” Debuting at Judges 3:23, it then recurs through the corpus. With 7 verses in 5 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Judges, which alone accounts for 29% of its uses. Different stems carry different senses — BDB groups them under 2 stems, among them Qal and Hiphil. 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 H5274 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 →
- 7
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 7 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 7 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Judges 2 verses 29%
- 2 Samuel 2 verses 29%
- 2 Chronicles 1 verse 14%
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 7 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 71%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 29%
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†: Shod 2×
- American Standard Version†: Arrayed them 1×, Bolted 1×, Him 1×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Bolt 1×, Bolted 1×, Enclosed 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Locked 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5274 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5274 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5274 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5274 across 9† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 2 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.
נעל I bar, bolt, lock
נעל II furnish with sandals
Qal
- and I shod thee with תחשׁ (q.v.).
Hiphil
- . and gave them sandals.
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
נָעַל vb. bar, bolt, lock
[ נָעַל ] vb. denom. furnish with sandals
— 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.
נָעַל
- (b. h.)
- 1. to tie (the door), to lock up, close. B. Kam. VI, 1 נ׳ בפניה כראוי if he locked it in (secured the flock) properly. Tosef. B. Bath. II, 11, a. e. נ׳ וגדר וכ׳ if he fastened (something on the property), fenced in or tore down, it is possession (חֲזָקָה). Sabb. XIII, 6 ונ׳ אחד בפניו and one blocked it (by placing himself in the entrance). Ib. 7 לנוֹעֵל את ביתו וכ׳ it is like one locking up (sitting at the entrance of) his house to guard it. Mekh. Mishp. s. 18 שלא לִנְעוֹל בפני וכ׳ in order not to close the door to future proselytes (not to discourage them on account of advanced age). Snh. 32ᵃ, a. fr. כדי שלא תִנְעוֹל וכ׳, v. דֶּלֶת.—Y. Naz. VIII, 57ᵃ bot., v. וַעַד. Tosef. Sot. V, 9 [read:] שנעל דלת וכ׳ who locked his wife up (to prevent her from going astray); Y. ib. I, 17ᵃ bot.; Gitt. 90ᵃ; Y. Kidd. IV, 66ᵃ; a. fr.—Cant. R. to VII, 2 (play on בנעלים, ib.) אתם נוֹעֲלִים לפני … ואני נועל וכ׳ you lock up (interrupt business) for my sake on Passover …, and I lock up (the rain) for your sake, v. נְעִילָה. Ib. מה היה … שהיו נועלין בעד כל הצרות how great wa is the beauty of thy steps (pilgrimage to the Temple) which locked up (protected against) all troubles.—Part. pass. נְעוּל; f. נְעוּלָה; pl. נְעוּלִים, נְעוּלִין; נְעוּלוֹת. Midr. Till. to Ps. IV שערי תפלה … נ׳ וכ׳ the gates of prayer are sometimes open, sometimes closed, but the gates of tears are never closed; a. e.
- 2. to tie a sandal, to put shoes on. Tosef. Sabb. IV (V), 8 לא יִנְעוֹל אדם וכ׳ one must not put on a nail-studded sandal &c. Y. M. Kat. III, 83ᶜ הורי … לנעול בו ביום R. … allowed (the people mourning for R. Yassa) to wear shoes on the same day. Tosef. Kidd. I, 5 נ׳ לו סנדלו וכ׳ if the slave tied his sandals for him (the new master) or untied them, it is possession (v. supra); B. Bath. 53ᵇ (Ms. M. הִנְעִיל); a. fr.—Part. pass. as ab., shod. Yalk. Josh. 7 וכי במנעלים אתה נ׳ וכ׳ dost thou wear shoes and observest not mourning?
- to put shoes on a person. B. Bath. l. c.; Kidd. 22ᵇ הלבישו הִנְעִילוֹ וכ׳ if the slave helped him put on his clothes or his shoes or lifted him up (helped him into a conveyance), it is possession.
- to be closed. Ber. 32ᵇ מיום … נִנְעֲלוּ שערי וכ׳ since the day the Temple was destroyed, the gates of prayer have been closed. Ib. שערי דמעה לא ננעלו; Midr. Till. to Ps. IV נִנְעָלִים, v. supra. B. Mets. 59ᵃ כל השערים נִנְעָלִים חוץ וכ׳ all gates (of prayer) are (at times) closed, except the gates for the cry of oppression. Ib. הפרגוד ננעל, v. פַּרְגּוֹד. Erub. 6ᵇ, a. e. אילמלא דלתותיה נִנְעָלוֹת if its gates were not shut by night; a. fr.—Sabb. 67ᵃ bot. (in an incantation for a swallowed fish-bone) נִנְעַלְתָּה כתריס (Ms. M. מנעלתה בתריס) thou art locked up as (within) a cuirass.
נְעַל
- , to tie a shoe. Part. pass. נָעִיל, נְעִיל. Targ. Y. Deut. XXV, 9 ויהא נ׳ וכ׳ and there shall be tied on the foot … a sandal which &c.
- to provide with shoes. Targ. II Chr. XXVIII, 15. [Dan. II, 25, a. e. הַנְעִל to bring up, fr. עֲלַל.] e.g. Daniel 2:25
נַעַל
- preced.)
- 1. (cmp. Gr. ὑπόδημα) [tied under the foot,] shoe. Yeb. 102ᵃ התורה … נַעֲלוֹ ולא מנעלו the Law (Deut. XXV, 9) says, what is tied to his foot, but not what covers his foot (a full shoe, v. מִנְעוֹל). Sifré Deut. 291 (ref. to Deut. l. c.) נעלו שלו his own shoe; a. e. e.g. Deuteronomy 25:9
- 2. lock, locking up.—Pl. נְעָלִים. Cant. R. to VII, 2, v. נְעִילָה.
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 7 distinct written forms H5274 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| נָע֖וּל | Verb, Qal, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Song of Solomon 4:12 | 2 |
| וְ/נָעַ֥ל | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | 2 Samuel 13:18 | 1 |
| וְ/נָעָֽל | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Judges 3:23 | 1 |
| וַ֠/יַּנְעִלוּ/ם | Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | 2 Chronicles 28:15 | 1 |
| וָ/אֶנְעֲלֵ֖/ךְ | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Ezekiel 16:10 | 1 |
| וּ/נְעֹ֥ל | Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | 2 Samuel 13:17 | 1 |
| נְעֻל֑וֹת | Verb, Qal, Participle Passive, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Judges 3:24 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5274, 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 7 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.
