נְקָמָה
vengeance
‘vengeance’ 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 Construct-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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 16 times (59%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute 7 times (26%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 4 times (15%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 27 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5360 appears — 22 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.
Numbers 2 verses
- Numbers 31:2 נִקְמַת֙ n c fs cs Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward you shall be gathered to your people.
- Numbers 31:3 נִקְמַת n c fs cs Moses spoke to the people, saying, Arm you men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian, to execute Yahweh's vengeance on Midian.
Judges 1 verse
2 Samuel 2 verses
- 2 Samuel 4:8 נְקָמוֹת֙ n c fp They brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David to Hebron, and said to the king, Behold, the head of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life; and Yahweh has avenged my lord the king this day of Saul, and of his seed.
- 2 Samuel 22:48 נְקָמֹ֖ת n c fp Even the God who executes vengeance for me, Who brings down peoples under me,
Psalms 4 verses
- Psalms 18:47 נְקָמ֣וֹת n c fp Even the God who executes vengeance for me, And subdues peoples under me.
- Psalms 79:10 נִ֝קְמַ֗ת n c fs cs Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let it be known among the nations, before our eyes, That vengeance for your servants' blood is being poured out.
- Psalms 94:1 נְקָמ֥וֹת נְקָמ֣וֹת n c fp n c fp Yahweh, you God to whom vengeance belongs, You God to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth.
- Psalms 149:7 נְ֭קָמָה n c fs To execute vengeance on the nations, And punishments on the peoples;
Jeremiah 9 verses
- Jeremiah 11:20 נִקְמָֽתְ/ךָ֙ n c fs cs + sfx pers 2ms But, Yahweh of Hosts, who judge righteously, who try the heart and the mind, I shall see your vengeance on them; for to you have I revealed my cause.
- Jeremiah 20:10 נִקְמָתֵ֖/נוּ n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cp For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him, [say] all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall; peradventure he will be persuaded, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
- Jeremiah 20:12 נִקְמָֽתְ/ךָ֙ n c fs cs + sfx pers 2ms But, Yahweh of Hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance on them; for to you have I revealed my cause.
- Jeremiah 46:10 נְקָמָה֙ n c fs For that day is [a day] of the Lord, Yahweh of Hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour and be satiate, and shall drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.
- Jeremiah 50:15 נִקְמַ֨ת n c fs cs Shout against her round about: she has submitted herself; her bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down; for it is the vengeance of Yahweh: take vengeance on her; as she has done, do to her.
- Jeremiah 50:28 נִקְמַת֙ נִקְמַ֖ת n c fs cs n c fs cs The voice of those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God, the vengeance of his temple.
- Jeremiah 51:6 נְקָמָ֥ה n c fs Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; don't be cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of Yahweh's vengeance; he will render to her a recompense.
- Jeremiah 51:11 נִקְמַ֤ת נִקְמַ֖ת n c fs cs n c fs cs Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: Yahweh has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple.
- Jeremiah 51:36 נִקְמָתֵ֑/ךְ n c fs cs + sfx pers 2fs Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.
Lamentations 1 verse
Ezekiel 3 verses
- Ezekiel 25:14 נִקְמָתִ֜/י נִקְמָתִ֔/י n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs I will lay my vengeance on Edom by the hand of my people Israel; and they shall do in Edom according to my anger and according to my wrath; and they shall know my vengeance, says the Lord Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 25:15 בִּ/נְקָמָ֑ה prep + n c fs Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with despite of soul to destroy with perpetual enmity;
- Ezekiel 25:17 נְקָמ֣וֹת נִקְמָתִ֖/י n c fp n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes; and they shall know that I am Yahweh, when I shall lay my vengeance on them.
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, נקמה (nᵉqâmâh) means “vengeance.” Scripture first uses it in Numbers 31:2. Spanning 22 verses in 7 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Jeremiah (41% of all occurrences). Carrying more than one sense, it rewards its full sense range. Dig into 22-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5360 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 →
- 22
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 22 distinct verses.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,226
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,226 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 22 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 22 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 15 verses · 68%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 23%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 9%
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: Vengeance 15×, Is the vengeance 2×, Revenge 2×
- American Standard Version: Vengeance 12×
- Berean Standard Bible: Vengeance 20×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Vengeance 13×, Vengeance of 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5360 across 23 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 4 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5360 across 23 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 H5360 across 24 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 3 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5360 across 19 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 3 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.
- 1. vengeance of God, abs. Ez 25:14; נקם נ׳ Je 51:36; נִקְמַת דַּם ψ 79:10; אֵל נְקָמוֹת 94:1(×2); עֵת נ׳ Je 51:6; יוֹם נ׳ Je 46:10; נ׳ יהוה 50:15, 28; 51:11; נ׳ הֵיכָלוֹ 50:28; 51:11; c. בְּ of adversary, נתן נ׳ Ez 25:14, 17; עשׂה נ׳ Ez 25:17; c. מִן of adversary נתן נ׳ 2 S 4:8 עשׂה נ׳ Ju 11:36; נִקְמָֽתְךָ מֵהֶם Je 11:20; 20:12; c. לְ for whom נתן נ׳ 2 S 22:48 = ψ 18:48. e.g. Ezekiel 25:14
- 2. of Israel and its chiefs נקם נ׳ מן Nu 31:2 (P); c. בְ׳, נתן ני׳ Nu 31:3 (P); עשׂה נ׳ ψ 149:7. e.g. Numbers 31:2
- 3. enemies of Israel abs. La 3:60; עשׂה בנקמה Ez 25:15; of Jeremiah לקח נ׳ מן Je 20:10. e.g. Lamentations 3:60
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
n.f. vengeance (on format. cf. LagBN 143);—נ׳ Je 46:10 + 3 times; cstr. נִקְמַת Nu 31:2 + 7 times; sf. נִקְמָתִי Ez 25:14 + 7 times sfs.; pl. נְקָמוֹת Ju 11:36 + 5 times; נְקָמֹת 2 S 22:48;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from נקם (nâqâm) (H5359) — vengeance.
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.
נְקָמָה
- (b. h.) same. Ber. 33ᵃ (ref. to Ps. XCIV, 1) גדולה נ׳ וכ׳ divine judgment is something great, for it is placed between two divine names. Ex. R. s. 20 עד שאנקום קְמָתָן וכ׳. until I execute judgment for the slaughter of the Ephraimites. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXLIX, 7 איזו היא נ׳ … מה שנקמו לישראל what revenge is meant here?… the revenge for the evil they did to Israel. Ib. ולא נִקְמַת אדם nor will it be a revenge executed by man; a. fr.—Pl. נְקָמוֹת. Ib. כל הנ׳ האילו יש וכ׳ all these retaliations are reserved with the Lord for the wicked; a. e.—[Ber. l. c. שתי נ הללו וכ׳ why these two judgments (n’ḳamah in the plural)?; v., however, הוֹפָעָה.] e.g. Psalms 94:1
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 22 distinct written forms H5360 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.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 17 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 22 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.
