נְצַל
to rescue
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Stem
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
Form
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Hiphil, Infinitive Construct 2 times (67%)
- Verb, a, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (33%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 3 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5338 appears — 3 distinct verses across 1 book. 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.
Daniel 3 verses
- Daniel 3:29 לְ/הַצָּלָ֖ה prep + Hiphil inf.cs Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak anything evil against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill; because there is no other god who is able to deliver after this sort.
- Daniel 6:14 לְ/הַצָּלוּתֵֽ/הּ prep + Hiphil inf.cs + sfx pers 3ms Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored until the going down of the sun to rescue him.
- Daniel 6:27 וּ/מַצִּ֗ל conj + a ptcp.act ms He delivers and rescues, and he works signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.
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 verb נצל centers on the idea of “to rescue.” A scarce word — 3 verses in all of the Hebrew Bible. Daniel dominates its distribution — 3 of 3 verses. Debuting at Daniel 3:29, it then recurs through the corpus. Sharing its root, it stands alongside נצל and הצלה. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5338 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 →
- 3
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 3 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,179
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,179 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 3 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Daniel 3 verses 100%
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 3 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 100%
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: Deliver 2×
- American Standard Version: Able to deliver 1×, Rescue him 1×, Rescueth 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Deliver 1×, Rescue him 1×, Rescues 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Rescue him 1×, Rescues 1×, Save 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5338 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5338 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5338 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5338 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- (Aphel) to rescue, extricate, deliver
Word origin
[ נְצַל ] vb. Haph. rescue, deliver
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from נצל (nâtsal) (H5337) — to rescue.
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.
נָצַל
- to remove, set aside.
- to empty, ransack. Esth. R. to III, 9 עד שנִצְּלוּ את מצרים so that they ransacked Egypt.
- , נִיצּוֹל
- *1. to be fit for throwing away (as נֵצֶל), to be decayed. Y. Naz. VII, 56ᵇ bot. בשר המת שנִצַּל Ar. (Ar. ed. Rome שנצול; ed. שנתוק), v. נֵצֶל.
- 2. (b. h.) to be rescued, saved. Midr. Till. to Ps. I לא נִצַּלְתִּי מידו I did not escape his power; Yalk. Num. 750 נוצלתי (read: נִיצַּ׳; ed. Liv. נִצּוֹלְתִּי). Yoma 86ᵇ כגון שבאת … ונ׳ הימנה when an opportunity to sin offered itself to him once and again, and he escaped it; Kidd. 39ᵇ. Esth. R. to II, 7 עתידין לִינָּצֵל וכ׳ are destined to be saved through me; עתידין להִנָּצֵל על ידיה be saved through her. B. Bath. 164ᵇ שלש … אין אדם ניצול מהן וכ׳ there are three sins which man cannot escape &c.; a. fr.
- to save, rescue. Num. R. s. 18 אשתו הִצִּילָתוֹ his wife saved him. Ib. משה … הַצִּילֵנוּ O Moses …, save us! Sabb. XVI, 1 מַצִּילִין אותן וכ׳ we must save them from fire (on the Sabbath). Snh. VIII, 7 שמצילין אותן בנפשן whom we must save (prevent from committing a crime) even at the risk of their lives. Ib. 73ᵃ ניתן להַצִּילָהּ בנפשו it is a duty to save her (from rape) at the expense of the assailant’s life; a. fr.—Trnsf. (in ritual and levitical law) to protect. Ḥull. 55ᵇ כל … מַצִּיל בגלודה every part of the skin (which has remained unaffected) protects a flayed animal from being declared ṭ’refah. Ib. מהו שיַצִּיל וכ׳ does it form a protection from &c.? Ohol. V, 3 מַצֶּלֶת על הכל protects everything in it from uncleanness; a. v. fr.
- to be saved. Esth. R. to V, 3 כבר הוּצְּלוּ חנניה וכ׳ Hananiah and his colleagues have long ere this been delivered from the furnace; a. e.
נְצַל
- , to save. Taan. 9ᵇ רחמנא לִיצְּלַן, v. כִּיסּוּפָא; a. e.
- same. Snh. 72ᵇ דלא מצי אַצּוּלֵיה when he cannot save him. Sabb. 115ᵃ השתא אַצּוּלֵי מַצִּילִינָן וכ׳ since we are bound to save them (on the Sabbath), is it necessary to say that they require burying (when defective)?; a. fr.
- to be saved. Ab. Zar. 18ᵃ bot. ומִתַּצְּלַת and thou shalt be saved.
נֵצֶל
- (preced. wds.) [that which is thrown away,] decayed matter, esp. (in levitical law) liquid and coagulated portions of a corpse. Ohol. II, 1; Naz. VII, 2. Y. ib. VII, 56ᵇ bot. איזהו נ׳ בשר המת שנתוק ומוהל וכ׳ (Ar. שנצל) what is netsel (in levitical law)? A corpse which is dissolving &c., v. מוֹהַל; Bab. ib. 50ᵃ איזהו נ׳ בשר המת שקרש ומוהל שהרתיח a secretion from a corpse which became coagulated, and a liquid secretion exposed to heat. Tosef. Ohol. III, 6; a. e.
צָלַל
- 1. to move, shake, hang over; denom. צֵל.
- 2. to turn, circle, roll (v. Jud. VII, 13); to eddy, sink. Koh. R. to XII, 7; Y. Ber. IV, 7ᵇ bot., a. e. (ref. to צולה, Is. XLIV, 27) why is Babylonia called tsulah, ששם צָלְלוּ מיתי וכ׳ because there sank the corpses of the generation of the flood; Lam. R. introd. (R. Josh. 2) צללו מי מבול (corr. acc.); v. infra.—3) (cmp. שָׁקַע) to settle, be clear; to clarify. Tosef. Nidd. III, 11 צָלְלוּ לא יחזור וכ׳ if the mixture has settled (become clear), he must not stir it up again; Nidd. 20ᵃ, v. עָכַר. Y. Keth. I, 25ᵇ bot. וחוזרת וצוֹלֶלֶת, v. צָכַר. Gen. R. s. 80, end וצָלַלְנוּ, v. צָכַר; a. e.—Part. pass. צָלוּל; f. צְלוּלָה; pl. צְלוּלִים, צְלוּלִין; צְלוּלוֹת. Ib. צ׳ היתה, v. צָכַר. Y. Ter. V, end, 43ᵈ יין צ׳ clarified wine. Sabb. 109ᵃ; 139ᵇ; a. fr.—Pesik. Haʿomer, p. 71ᵃ (play on צלול, K’ri צליל, Jud. VII, 13) על שצלול היה אותו הדור וכ׳ (not על שצלל עליהם, v. Rashi to Jud. l. c.) because that generation was cleared (bared) of righteous men; Pesik. R. s. 18 שצליל עליהם corr. acc.); Yalk. Jud. 62, Yalk. Lev. 643 (corr. acc.).—[ e.g. Judges 7:13
- 4. to glisten, be bright; (of sound) to vibrate, ring; v. מְצִילָּה, צִלְצֵל &c.]
- to be cleared. Y. Nidd. II, end, 50ᵇ יִצָּלְלוּ ולא יעכרו, v. עָכַר. Sabb. XX, 2 (139ᵇ) שיִצַּלּוּ (Bab. ed. שיִצּוֹלּוּ; v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 20) that they (the dregs) may settle.
- 1. to become clear, settle. Par. VIII, 11 עד שתָּצֵל until it is settled.
- 2. (denom. of צֵל) to shade. Pes. 50ᵃ (ref. to מצלות, Zech. XIV, 20) there will be an addition to the sacred precincts of Jerusalem עד שהסוס רץ ומֵיצֵל Ms. M. (ed. ומֵצֵיל; Rashi: עד שעה שהסרס וכ׳) as far as a horse can run (from sunrise) until it gives shade (casts its shadow under itself, i.e. till noon-time; Y. ib. III, end, 30ᵇ עד מקום שהסוס רץ ואינו עושה צל); Bab. l. c. כל ביזה … עד שהסוס רץ ומיצל וכ׳ whatever booty Israel will make (from morning) to the time &c., will be sacred &c. e.g. Zechariah 14:20
- to be sunk, dumped. Zeb. 113ᵇ שכל מתי מבול נִצְטַלְּלוּ לשם Ms. R. a. K. (ed. נִצְתַּלְּלוּ שם) because all the corpses of the flood were dumped there (in Babylonia); Sabb. 113ᵇ; v. supra.
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 3 distinct written forms H5338 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וּ/מַצִּ֗ל | Verb, a, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 6:27 | 1 |
| לְ/הַצָּלָ֖ה | Verb, Hiphil, Infinitive Construct | Daniel 3:29 | 1 |
| לְ/הַצָּלוּתֵֽ/הּ | Verb, Hiphil, Infinitive Construct | Daniel 6:14 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5338, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 3 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 3 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.
