נָקַף
to strike
‘to strike’ 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 Hiphil verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”). Here: ‘go around’
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘let feasts go around’
Form
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him 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”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms 15 distinct
- Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 3 times (16%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Infinitive Absolute 2 times (11%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (11%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (5%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 time (5%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (5%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (5%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (5%)
+7 more forms (7 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 19 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5362 appears — 19 distinct verses across 9 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.
Leviticus 1 verse
Joshua 2 verses
1 Kings 1 verse
2 Kings 2 verses
- 2 Kings 6:14 וַ/יַּקִּ֖פוּ conj + Hiphil wimpf 3mp Therefore sent he there horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and surrounded the city.
- 2 Kings 11:8 וְ/הִקַּפְתֶּ֨ם conj + Hiphil wpf 2mp You shall compass the king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand; and he who comes within the ranks, let him be slain: and be you with the king when he goes out, and when he comes in.
2 Chronicles 2 verses
- 2 Chronicles 4:3 מַקִּיפִ֥ים Hiphil ptcp.act mp Under it was the likeness of oxen, which did compass it round about, for ten cubits, compassing the sea round about. The oxen were in two rows, cast when it was cast.
- 2 Chronicles 23:7 וְ/הִקִּיפוּ֩ conj + Hiphil wpf 3cp The Levites shall compass the king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand; and whoever comes into the house, let him be slain: and be you with the king when he comes in, and when he goes out.
Job 3 verses
- Job 1:5 הִקִּיפֽוּ֩ Hiphil pf 3cp It was so, when the days of their feasting had run their course, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts." Thus did Job continually.
- Job 19:6 הִקִּֽיף Hiphil pf 3ms Know now that God has subverted me, And has surrounded me with his net.
- Job 19:26 נִקְּפוּ Piel pf 3cp After my skin is destroyed, Then in my flesh shall I see God,
Psalms 4 verses
- Psalms 17:9 יַקִּ֥יפוּ Hiphil impf 3mp From the wicked who oppress me, My deadly enemies, who surround me.
- Psalms 22:16 הִקִּיפ֑וּ/נִי Hiphil pf 3cp + sfx pers 1cs For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evil-doers have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet.
- Psalms 48:12 וְ/הַקִּיפ֑וּ/הָ conj + Hiphil impv 2mp + sfx pers 3fs Walk about Zion, and go around her. Number its towers;
- Psalms 88:17 הִקִּ֖יפוּ Hiphil pf 3cp They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me.
Isaiah 3 verses
- Isaiah 10:34 וְ/נִקַּ֛ף conj + Piel wpf 3ms He will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one.
- Isaiah 15:8 הִקִּ֥יפָה Hiphil pf 3fs For the cry is gone round about the borders of Moab; the wailing of it to Eglaim, and the wailing of it to Beer-elim.
- Isaiah 29:1 יִנְקֹֽפוּ Qal juss 3mp Ho Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! add you year to year; let the feasts come round:
Lamentations 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.
“to strike” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb נקף (nâqaph). The verb spans 4 stems, from Niphal to Piel. It appears 19 verses across 9 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. First canonically at Leviticus 19:27, it enters the text early. Related forms include נקף, נקפה and תקופה. See the sense tree, 19-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5362 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 →
- 19
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 19 distinct verses.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,563
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,563 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 19 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 19 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 10 verses · 53%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 8 verses · 42%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 5%
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†: Compassed 2×, Compassing 2×, Go round about 2×
- American Standard Version†: Compassing 2×, Going about 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: All the way 2×, Circling 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Circling 2×, Encircling 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5362 across 20† 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5362 across 20† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 H5362 across 19† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 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 H5362 across 24† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 20 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 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.
נקף I strike off
Niphal
- . and the thickets of the forest shall be struck away
Piel
- . after my skin, which they have struck off
נקף II go around
Qal
- let feasts go around
Hiphil
- 1. go around, surround, encompass
- 2. make the round, i.e. complete the circuit
- 3. make round, round off (lit.)
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. [ נָקַף ] vb. strike off
II. [ נָקַף ] vb. go around (intrans.)
— 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.
נָקַף I
- to bring in close contact; to knock, strike against, wound. Ḥull. 7ᵇ אין אדם נוֹקֵף וכ׳ no one on earth bruises his finger, unless it is decreed &c. Ber. 7ᵇ; Meg. 6ᵇ מי שלבו נוֹקְפוֹ he whom his heart smites (who has no clear conscience). Nidd. 3ᵇ, a. e. לבו נוקפו ופורש he may have scruples and separate himself entirely from his wife. Midr. Till. to Ps. IX, v. נֶקֶף.—Maas. Sh. V, 15; Sot. IX, 10 הנוֹקְפִים those who knocked the sacrifices on their heads; expl. ib. 48ᵃ; Y. ib. IX, 24ᵃ bot.—Part. pass. נָקוּף; f. נְקוּפָה; pl. נְקוּפִים, נְקוּפִין; נְקוּפוֹת. Tosef. Ḥull. III, 24 ביצים נ׳ לקערה eggs cracked open into a dish (Ḥull. 64ᵃ טרופות).
- 1. to cause a knocking together. Sot. 22ᵇ (expl. נקפי) המַנְקִיף את רגליו he who knocks his feet against each other (by his mincing walk; Rashi: who causes his feet to strike against objects on the road); cmp. נָקַשׁ.
- 2. to bring closely together. Bekh. VII, 6 שמַקִּיף, v. נָקַשׁ. Nidd. X, 7 ומַקֶּפֶת and brings the vessel which contains the Ḥallah near the dough; T’bul Yom IV, 3, sq. Bets. IV, 5 ואין מַקִּיפִין שתי וכ׳ and you must not move two wine vessels together to put upon them &c.—Esp. (ritual law, in examining an organic defect found in a slaughtered animal) to create a defect similar and near to the one found, in order to ascertain whether the latter was not the result of an accident after slaughtering; in gen. to compare. Ḥull. 50ᵃ מַקִּיפִים בבני מעים we may compare defects in entrails in which was found a perforation the origin of which is doubtful by making a hole next to it. Ib. מקיפין בקנה we may compare defects in windpipes; a. fr.—Kidd. 40ᵃ אין מקיפין בחילול השם no comparing (balancing of sins against good deeds) is granted when the Name of God is profaned; (oth. interpret., v. נָקַף II).—Part. pass. מוּקָּף brought near. Erub. 30ᵇ; Ḥull. 7ᵃ; a. fr. לתרום שלא מן המ׳ to take T’rumah out of a mass which is not in close neighborhood of those products which are to be redeemed; Bicc. II, 5; Ter. IV, 3; a. e.
נְקַף
- , to strike, knock, push down. Targ. Ps. CXL, 5. Targ. O. Ex. XXXIV, 20 ותִיקְּפֵיה ed. Berl. (oth. ed., a Y. ותִנְקְ׳; ed. Vien. ותַנְקְ׳ Af.; h. text וערפתו). Targ. Deut. XXI, 4 (O. ed. Berl. ויַקְּ׳, Af.); a. e.—Part. pass. נְקִיף; f. נְקִיפָא. Ib. 6 (O. ed. Vien. נְקֶפְתָּא).—Erub. 53ᵇ (enigmatic speech) עלת נַקְפַת בכד ידאון וכ׳ the ladle strikes against the jug, shall the eagles fly to their nests (the wine is gone, shall the students go home)?
- same. Targ. Ps. CXL, 12 (Ms. Pe.).—Part. pass. מְנַקַּף. Ber. 6ᵃ כרעי דמְנַקְּפֵי bruised feet; Yoma 53ᵃ, v. נְגַף.
- 1. same; v. supra.—2)
- to knock the feet against each other, to mince (v. preced.Hif.). Targ. Is. III, 16 (h. text טפף).
- 2. to compare defects (v. preced.Hif.). Ḥull. 50ᵃ אַקְּפִינְהוּ ולא וכ׳ they compared them, and they did not look alike.
- to knock against, to stumble. Targ. II Esth. IV, 13.—Yoma l. c. מִינַּקְּפִין Ar. ed. Koh., v. נְגַף.
נָקַף II
- to circle; to bore.—Part. pass. נָקוּף; f. נְקוּפָה. Gen. R. s. 100, v. נָקַב.
- 1. to surround. Erub. I, 8 (15ᵇ) והִקִּיפוּהָ (ב)כלי בהמה and they surrounded it (the camp) with utensils of travel (wagons, saddles &c.). Ib. 9 מַקִּיפִין שלשה וכ׳ you may surround the camp with three ropes &c. (for Sabbath purposes). Ib. 53ᵇ מצאתי שמקיפין אותה גנות וכ׳ I found that gardens and orchards surrounded the town (making it inaccessible); a. fr.
- 2. to cause to go around. Mekh. B’shall. s. 1 אַקִּיפֵם במדבר וכ׳ I shall make them go around in the desert forty years; ib. הריני מַקִּיפָן וכ׳. Snh. VIII, 1 עד שיַקִּיף וכ׳ until he has grown hair around &c., v. זָקֵן.
- 3. to cut all around, esp. (with ref. to Lev. XIX, 27) to cut around the corners of the hair of the head. Naz. 57ᵇ אחד המַקִּיף ואחד הנִיקָּף he who cuts and he whose hair is cut are alike guilty; a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 19:27
- 4. to sell on terms (v. תְּקוּפָה), to lend. Ab. III, 16 החנוני מַקִּיף the shopkeeper allows credit (the Lord is long-suffering). B. Kam. 79ᵃ top גנב וה׳ if he stole an animal and sold it on credit (and has received no pay); a. fr.—Kidd. 40ᵃ אין מַקִּיפִין וכ׳ no loan on time is granted (no chance for repentance is allowed), when the Name of the Lord is profaned; (oth. interpret., v. נָקַף I).
- to be surrounded. Arakh. 33ᵇ; Meg. 3ᵇ שה׳ ולבסוף וכ׳ it was surrounded (a fort was built) and then settled; a. fr.—Part. מוּקָּף; f. מוּקֶּפֶת; pl. מוּקָּפִין; מוּקָּפוֹת. Ib. I, 1 המ׳ חומה וכ׳ fortified since the days of Joshua. Ib. 2ᵇ. Ib. 4ᵇ. Gen. R. s. 39, v. פָּתִיל; a. fr.—Mekh. B’shall., s. 1 מוקפות semicircular
- to have one’s hair cut all around. Naz. l. c., v. supra. Ib. כל היכא דנ׳ מיחייב וכ׳ whenever he who has his hair cut &c. is punishable (is not a minor or a woman), the cutter is punishable; a. e.
- 1. to collect fruit which remained in the crown of the tree (v. נִיקּוּף II), to glean olives (corresp. to פֵּאֵר, Deut. XXIV, 20). Gitt. V, 8 עני המְנַקֵּף … מה שתחתיו גזל when the poor man does the gleaning on the top of the olive tree, what falls down under him is forbidden to any other person; Y. ed. המנ׳ בראש הזית גזל (corr. acc.; v. ib. 47ᶜ top). e.g. Deuteronomy 24:20
- 2. to cut all around, trim. B. Kam. 119ᵇ; Tosef. ib. XI, 18 מְנַקְּפֵי היגין those who trim shrubs. Ib. השוכר … לנַקֵּף עמו וכ׳ if one hires a laborer to help him trim &c.
נְקַף ²
- —Af. אַקֵּף as preced. Hif. Targ. Jud. XI, 18.—Targ. Lev. XIX, 27; a. fr. Part. pass. מַקֵּף (= h. מוּקָּף, v. preced. Hof.). Ib. XXV, 31. Targ. Is. XXIX, 2; a. fr.—Snh. 69ᵃ מקמיה דלַקִּיף זקן before his hair around the genitals is grown.—Y. Ber. IX, 14ᵇ bot., a. e. (expl. ניקפי) אַקֵּיף לי וכ׳ (the Pharisee that says,) Lend me that I may do a certain pious work; a. fr.
נֶקֶף
- (נָקַף I)
- 1. bruise.—Pl. נְקָפִים. Sabb. 62ᵇ (expl. נקפה, Is. III, 24); Yalk. Is. 264. e.g. Isaiah 3:24
- 2. beating (of the heart), scruples, doubt. Midr. Till. to Ps. IX, 2 שלא יהא בלבי נ׳ that there be no struggle in my heart (ed. Bub., a. Yalk. ib. 642: שלא יהא לבי נוֹקֵף, v. נָקַף I).
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 19 distinct written forms H5362 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 H5362, 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 18 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 19 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
- Leviticus 19:27
- Joshua 6:3
- 1 Kings 7:24
- 2 Kings 6:14
- 2 Chronicles 4:3
- Job 1:5
- Psalms 17:9
- Isaiah 10:34
- Lamentations 3:5
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.
