נֵ֫צַח
perpetuity
also: eminence, strength, victory, enduring 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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
40 distinct verses where H5331 appears in the Absolute state, across 10 books. 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 Samuel 1 verse
1 Chronicles 1 verse
Job 6 verses
- Job 4:20 לָ/נֶ֥צַח prep + n c ms Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.
- Job 14:20 לָ֭/נֶצַח prep + n c ms You forever prevail against him, and he passes; You change his face, and send him away.
- Job 20:7 לָ/נֶ֣צַח prep + n c ms Yet he shall perish forever like his own dung, Those who have seen him shall say, 'Where is he?'
- Job 23:7 לָ֝/נֶ֗צַח prep + n c ms There the upright might reason with him, So I should be delivered forever from my judge.
- Job 34:36 נֶ֑צַח n c ms I wish that Job were tried to the end, Because of his answering like wicked men.
- Job 36:7 לָ֝/נֶ֗צַח prep + n c ms He doesn't withdraw his eyes from the righteous, But with kings on the throne, He sets them forever, and they are exalted.
Psalms 18 verses
- Psalms 9:6 לָ֫/נֶ֥צַח prep + n c ms The enemy is overtaken by endless ruin. The very memory of the cities which you have overthrown has perished.
- Psalms 9:18 לָ֭/נֶצַח prep + n c ms For the needy shall not always be forgotten, Nor the hope of the poor perish forever.
- Psalms 10:11 לָ/נֶֽצַח prep + n c ms He says in his heart, "God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see it."
- Psalms 13:1 נֶ֑צַח n c ms How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
- Psalms 16:11 נֶֽצַח n c ms You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
- Psalms 44:23 לָ/נֶֽצַח prep + n c ms Wake up! Why do you sleep, Lord? Arise! Don't reject us forever.
- Psalms 49:9 לָ/נֶ֑צַח prep + n c ms That he should live on forever, That he should not see corruption.
- Psalms 49:19 נֵ֝֗צַח n c ms He shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see the light.
- Psalms 52:5 לָ֫/נֶ֥צַח prep + n c ms God will likewise destroy you forever. He will take you up, and pluck you out of your tent, And root you out of the land of the living. Selah.
- Psalms 68:16 לָ/נֶֽצַח prep + n c ms Why do you look in envy, you rugged mountains, At the mountain where God chooses to reign? Yes, Yahweh will dwell there forever.
- Psalms 74:1 לָ/נֶ֑צַח prep + n c ms God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
- Psalms 74:3 נֶ֑צַח n c ms Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins, All the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary.
- Psalms 74:10 לָ/נֶֽצַח prep + n c ms How long, God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme your name forever?
- Psalms 74:19 לָ/נֶֽצַח prep + n c ms Don't deliver the soul of your dove to wild beasts. Don't forget the life of your poor forever.
- Psalms 77:8 לָ/נֶ֣צַח prep + n c ms Has his loving kindness vanished forever? Does his promise fail for generations?
- Psalms 79:5 לָ/נֶ֑צַח prep + n c ms How long, Yahweh? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?
- Psalms 89:46 לָ/נֶ֑צַח prep + n c ms How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?
- Psalms 103:9 לָ/נֶ֥צַח prep + n c ms He will not always accuse; Neither will he stay angry forever.
Proverbs 1 verse
Isaiah 6 verses
- Isaiah 13:20 לָ/נֶ֔צַח prep + n c ms It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be lived in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there.
- Isaiah 25:8 לָ/נֶ֔צַח prep + n c ms He has swallowed up death forever; and the Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from off all the earth: for Yahweh has spoken it.
- Isaiah 28:28 לָ/נֶ֖צַח prep + n c ms Bread [grain] is ground; for he will not be always threshing it: and though the wheel of his cart and his horses scatter it, he does not grind it.
- Isaiah 33:20 לָ/נֶ֔צַח prep + n c ms Look on Zion, the city of our solemnities: your eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tent that shall not be removed, the stakes of it shall never be plucked up, neither shall any of the cords of it be broken.
- Isaiah 34:10 לְ/נֵ֣צַח נְצָחִ֔ים prep + n c ms cs n c mp It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke of it shall go up for ever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.
- Isaiah 57:16 לָ/נֶ֖צַח prep + n c ms For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always angry; for the spirit would faint before me, and the souls who I have made.
Jeremiah 3 verses
- Jeremiah 3:5 לָ/נֶ֑צַח prep + n c ms Will he retain [his anger] forever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things, and have had your way.
- Jeremiah 15:18 נֶ֔צַח n c ms Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? will you indeed be to me as a deceitful [brook], as waters that fail?
- Jeremiah 50:39 לָ/נֶ֔צַח prep + n c ms Therefore the wild animals of the desert with the wolves shall dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited forever; neither shall it be lived in from generation to generation.
Lamentations 1 verse
Amos 2 verses
- Amos 1:11 נֶֽצַח n c ms Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because he pursued his brother with the sword, And cast off all pity, And his anger raged continually, And he kept his wrath forever;
- Amos 8:7 לָ/נֶ֖צַח prep + n c ms Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, "Surely I will never forget any of their works.
Habakkuk 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.
נצח (netsach) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “perpetuity.” The King James Version usually renders it “ever,” while modern versions prefer “forever” (Berean Standard Bible) — see the renderings breakdown. With 42 verses in 11 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Psalms, which alone accounts for 43% of its uses. It also covers “eminence”, “strength”, and “victory”, alongside “perpetuity” — 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 H5331 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 →
- 42
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 42 distinct verses.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #837
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 837 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 42 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 42 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 28 verses · 67%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 14 verses · 33%
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†: Ever 20×, End 2×, Perpetual 2×
- American Standard Version†: Ever 19×, End 2×, Perpetual 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Forever 15×, Always 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Forever 25×, Perpetuity 4×, End 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5331 across 42† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 H5331 across 42† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 H5331 across 31† 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 12 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5331 across 42† 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.
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.
נצח I
- 1. eminence: נצח ישׂראל the Eminence of Israel (י׳) 1 S 15:29 (DrSam 98 glory of Israel); attribute of God 1 Ch 29:11 (‖ הוד, תפארת et al.). e.g. 1 Samuel 15:29
- 2. enduring of life, and so life itself as enduring: אָבַד נִצְחִי La 3:18 my endurance doth vanish (De sap of life, v. ii. נ׳). e.g. Lamentations 3:18
- 3. endurance in time: משׁאות נ׳ ψ 74:3 perpetual desolations; לנ׳ יְדַבֵּר Pr 21:28 speaketh continually (?; v. Toy); עד־נ׳ ψ 49:20 unto the end (a long duration), so Jb 34:36. e.g. Psalms 74:3
- 4. everlastingness, ever, usually לָנֶצַח for ever, 2 S 2:26; Is 13:20; 25:8; 28:28; 33:20; 57:16 Je 3:5; 50:39 Am 8:7; Hb 1:4 ψ 9:7, 19; 10:11; 44:24; 49:10; 52:7; 68:17; 74:1, 10, 19; 77:9; 79:5; 89:47; 103:9 Jb 4:20; 14:20; 20:7; 23:7; 36:7 La 5:20; לנצח נצחים (cf. עולם עולמים) Is 34:10; seldom abbr. נֶצַח Am 1:11 (לָנ׳ 𝔊 We Now GASm), Je 15:18 ψ 13:2; 16:11. e.g. 2 Samuel 2:26
נצח II juice of grapes, fig. of blood, gore
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. n.m. La 3:18 eminence, enduring, everlastingness, perpetuity (לנצח Ecclus 40:14 as 4 infr.);—נֵ֫צַח 1 S 15:29 + 3 times; נֶ֫צַח Am 1:11 + 36 times; sf. נִצְחִי La 3:18; pl. נְצָחִים Is 34:10;—
II. n.m. juice of grapes, fig. of blood, gore;—only sf. נִצְחָם Is 63:3, 6.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from נצח (nâtsach) (H5329) — to excel.
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.
נָצַח
- [to be bright, pure,] (cmp. זָכָה) to be victorious, win, prevail. Y. Sabb. VII, 5ᵇ top אם לִנְצוֹחַ אם להִינָּצֵחַ whether to conquer or to be conquered. Pes. 119ᵃ (play on לַמְנַצֵּחַ) זמרו למי שנוֹצְחִין אותו ושמח sing to him who rejoices when they conquer him (prevail over him to change his evil decrees); Midr. Till. to Ps. IV. Pesik. R. s. 40 נָצַחְתִּי לדור וכ׳ I conquered the generation of the flood and was the loser by it, because I destroyed &c. Ib. נְצָחַנִי משה וכ׳ Moses conquered me …, and I gained all those masses; a. fr.—Part. pass. נָצוּחַ. Ib.Pesik. R. s. 40 נָצַחְתִּי לדור וכ׳ I conquered the generation of the flood and was the loser by it, because I destroyed &c. Ib. נְצָחַנִי משה וכ׳ Moses conquered me …, and I gained all those masses; a. fr.—Part. pass. נָצוּחַ. Ib. בשעה שאני נוצח … ובשעה שאני נ׳ וכ׳ when I prevail, I lose, but when I am prevailed over, I gain; a. e.
- 1. to make illustrious, to glorify. Midr. Till. l. c. (expl. למנצח) למי שהוא נאה לנַצֵּחַ to him whom it is befitting to glorify.
- 2. to conquer, prevail over. Ib. מלך ב"וד מְנַצְּחִים אותו וכ׳ a human king is angry when people defeat him (in argument; cmp. זְכֵי Pa.); Pes. l. c.—B. Mets. 59ᵇ נִצְּחוּנִי בני (or נְצָחוּנִי) my children have won over me. Ib. תלמידי חכמים שמנצחים וכ׳ scholars who defeat one another in discussion. Snh. 91ᵃ אם יְנַּצְּחוּנִי … נַצַּחְתֶּם if they defeat me, say to them, you have defeated an ignoramus among us; ואם אני אֲנַצֵּחַ … תורת משה נִצְּחַתְכֶם and if I defeat them, say to them, the law of Moses has defeated you; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְנוּצָּח. Midr. Till. l. c. למי שמנ׳ וכ׳ to him who allows himself to be won over by his creatures (v. supra); a. e.
- to be defeated. Y. Sabb. II, 5ᵇ top v. supra.
נְצַח
- 1. to be glad, to sing. Targ. II Esth. I, 2 והוה נָצַח וכ׳ it flew singing among &c.
- 2. to succeed, thrive. Targ. Koh. XI, 2.
- 3. to be victorious. Targ. O. Ex. XXXII, 18, v. נַצְחָא; a. e.—Y. Sot. IX, 24ᵇ נַצְחוּ טליא the boys (John Hyrcan’s sons) have won the battle; Bab. Sot. 33ᵃ; Tosef. ib. XIII, 5. Tam. 32ᵃ, v. סִטְנָא; a. e.
- to conquer, overpower. Targ. Y. Num. XVI, 14; a. e.—Lam. R. to I, 13 (expl. וירדנה ib.) נַצְּחָהּ (not נצחא) he conquered her.
- to cheer up, play. Y. Ter. VIII, end, 46ᶜ וא׳ קדמיהון and played before them; (Gen. R. s. 63 מוזגה, v. מְזַג).
- 1. to be bright, shine, excel. Targ. Ez. XIX, 11. Ib. XXXI, 8; a. e.
- 2. to be defeated. Targ. Y. Ex. XXXII, 18.
נִצֵּחַ
- preced.) successful, convincing, irrefutable. Snh. 105ᵃ (ref. to Jer. VIII, 5) תשובה נ׳ השיבה וכ׳ the congregation of Israel defeated the prophets with an irrefutable argument. e.g. Jeremiah 8:5
נֶצַח
- preced.) success, endurance; (adv.) forever. Erub. 54ᵃ כל מקום שנאמר נ׳ וכ׳ wherever the Biblical text has the words netsaḥ, selah, or vaʿed, it means &c., v. הֶפְסֵק.—Pl. נְצָחִים. Midr. Till. to Ps. IV, v. נִיצּוּחַ.
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 20 distinct written forms H5331 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 H5331, 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
Derived from this word
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. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 37 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 42 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
- 1 Samuel 15:29
- 2 Samuel 2:26
- 1 Chronicles 29:11
- Job 4:20
- Psalms 9:6
- Proverbs 21:28
- Isaiah 13:20
- Jeremiah 3:5
- Lamentations 3:18
- Amos 1:11
- Habakkuk 1:4
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.
