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נָשַׁק

to kiss

‘to kiss’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓

H5401 Strong's Hebrew
nâshaq Transliteration
/naw-shak'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 35 appearances

Compare with another word →

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 נשק centers on the idea of “to kiss.” Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 27:26. It turns up in 35 verses across 14 books, a moderately common footprint. The word gravitates to Genesis (31%), then 2 Samuel and Psalms. Read the stem: it spans 3 stems, including Qal and Piel. Dig into 35-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
armed
Modern gloss
to kiss
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H5401 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 →

35
distinct verses
The word appears in 35 distinct verses.
14 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 14 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 27:26
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 27:26.
Hosea 13:2
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Hosea 13:2.
#1,023
by frequency
Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,023 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 35 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 13 · 37%
  • Historical 12 · 34%
  • Wisdom 8 · 23%
  • Prophets 2 · 6%

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 35 distinct verses.

  • Torah (Pentateuch) 13 verses · 37%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 12 verses · 34%
  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 10 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: Kissed 13×, Kiss 4×
  • American Standard Version: Kissed 8×, Him 3×, Kiss 3×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Kissed 12×, Kiss 6×, Kissed him 2×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Kissed 11×, Kiss 5×, He kissed 3×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H5401 across 35 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Kissed” 13×
  • “Kiss” 4×

Plus 18 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 H5401 across 35 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Kissed” 8×
  • “Him” 3×
  • “Kiss” 3×
  • “Kissed him” 2×

Plus 19 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 H5401 across 35 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Kissed” 12×
  • “Kiss” 6×
  • “Kissed him” 2×

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 H5401 across 40 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Kissed” 11×
  • “Kiss” 5×
  • “He kissed” 3×
  • “And” 2×
  • “Then” 2×
  • “Will kiss” 2×

Plus 15 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 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.

נשק I kiss (NH id., Assyrian našâku, 𝔗 נְשֵׁיק, נְשַׁק, Syriac ܢܫܰܩ, kiss (orig. smell [نَشِقَ] according to LagNov. Psalt. Spec. 24 f.)

Qal

  • Pf. 3 ms. נ׳ 1 K 19:18 2 S 15:5; 3 fs. נָֽשְׁקָה Pr 7:13; 3 pl. נָשָׁ֑קוּ ψ 85:11; Impf. יִשַּׁק Gn 41:40, וַיִּשַּׁק 27:27 +; sf. יִשָּׁקֵ֫נִי Ct 1:2; 1 s. cohort. אֶשֳּׁקָה־ 1 K 19:20; 3 mpl. יִשָּׁק֑וּן Ho 13:2, etc.; Imv. וּשֲׁקָה Gn 27:26; Inf. cstr. נְשָׁק־ 2 S 20:9;—kiss, usually c. לְ pers.: Gn 27:26, 27; 29:11; 50:1 Ex 4:27 (all J), Gn 48:10 Ex 18:7 (both E), 2 S 15:5; 14:33; 19:40; 20:9 1 K 19:20 Pr 7:13 Ru 1:9, 14; so of idol-worship 1 K 19:18 (cf. WeSkizzen iii. 105; Heid. 109), cf. וַתִּשַּׁק יָדִי לְפִי Jb 31:27 and my hand hath kissed my mouth; rarely c. acc. pers. 1 S 20:41 (אִישׁ אֶת־רֵעֵהוּ), sf. pers. 1 S 10:1 Ct 1:2 (+ מִנְּשִׁיקוֹת), 8:1, also Gn 33:4 וַיִּשָּׁקֵהוּ (J; Holz E; wd. suspicious, Di rejects); עֲגָלִים יִשּׁ׳ Ho 13:2 calves do they kiss; שְׂפָתַיִם יִשָּׁ֑ק Pr 24:26 lips he kisses; abs. ψ 85:11 (fig., recipr.).—עַל־פִּיךָ יִשַּׁק Gn 41:40 is dub., Di ‘to thy mouth all my people shall yield’ (fit, adapt themselves, cf. Arabic √), so Kau BuhlLex, but this meaning uncertain, and text perhaps corrupt, v. Di Holz). e.g. 1 Kings 19:18

Piel

  • Impf. 3 ms. וַיְנַשֵּׁק Gn 32:1; 45:15, וַיְנַשֶּׁק־ 29:13; Imv. mpl. נַשְּׁקוּ־ ψ 2:12; Inf. cstr. נַשֵּׁק Gn 31:28;—kiss = Qal: c. לְ pers. Gn 29:13 (J), 31:28; 32:1; 45:15 (all E); נַשְּׁקוּ־בַר ψ 2:12 is dub., cf. i. בַּר p. 135 a supr. e.g. Genesis 32:1

Hiphil

  • Pt. מַשִּׁיקוֹת Ez 3:13 of wings of cherubim, gently touching each other (c. אֶל־). e.g. Ezekiel 3:13

נשק II exact meaning uncertain

Qal

  • Pt. pl. cstr. נֹשְׁקֵי:—נ׳ קֶשֶׁת 1 Ch 12:2 equipped with the bow, so 2 Ch 17:17 (+ מָגֵן); נ׳ רוֹמֵי קֶשֶׁת ψ 78:9 is difficult, ר׳ appos. of נ׳ according to Hup-Now Bae al. (Ges§ 130 e); del. רוֹמֵי as explan. gloss Hup Hi Che Kau; del. ver. as gloss Hup Kau Bae. e.g. 1 Chronicles 12:2

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. vb. kiss (NH id., Assyrian našâku, 𝔗 נְשֵׁיק, נְשַׁק, Syriac ܢܫܰܩ, kiss (orig. smell [نَشِقَ] according to LagNov. Psalt. Spec. 24 f.): Arabic نَسَقَ is fasten together, arrange in order, Ethiopic ንሱቅ pt. ordine dispositus, apte sertus Di 641, poss. akin to II. נשׁק);—

II. vb. exact meaning uncertain; prob. either handle, or be equipped with (cf. perhaps Arabic نَسَقَ, etc., sub I. נשׁק);—only

— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.

Derived from נשק (nâsaq) (H5400) — to kindle.

Part of speech: Verb TWOT: 1435 , 1436


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.

נָשַׁק

  • 1. to touch closely; to kiss. Y. Yeb. XV, 14ᵈ (ref. to נשק, Ps. CXL, 8) ביום שהקיץ נוֹשֵׁק וכ׳ when the summer kisses the autumn (at the change of seasons, when disease is rife). Ib. ששני עולמות נוֹשְׁקִין וכ׳ when the two worlds touch eath other (the moment of death). Gen. R. s. 90, beg. (ref. to Gen. XLI, 40) שלא יהא אדם נוֹשְׁקֵינִי וכ׳ none shall kiss me (the kiss of homage) but thou. Ber. 8ᵇ, a. e. כשנוֹשְׁקִין אין נושקין אלא וכ׳ when they (the Medians) kiss, they do so only on the hand. Yalk. Gen. 159 בדבר שהוא נוֹשְׁקוֹ על ערפו וכ׳ with a thing which one puts close to one’s neck, that is the bow; a. fr.—Part. pass. נָשׁוּק (cmp. אָחוּז fr. אָחַז) kissing. Sot. 42ᵇ (ref. to Ruth I, 14) יבאו בני הנְשׁוּקָה … הדבוקה let the children of her that kissed (and parted) come and fall into the hands of the children of her who clung (to Naomi); Yalk. Sam. 156 הנְשֵׁיקָה … הדְּבֵקָה. e.g. Psalms 140:8
  • 2. (denom. of נֶשֶׁק) to arm, equip. Cant. R. to I, 2 (expl. ישקני, ib.) יזיינני יטהרני ידביקני may he arm me (ref. to I Chr. XII, 2), may he purify me (v. infra), may he attach me (ref. to Ezek. III, 13). e.g. 1 Chronicles 12:2
    • 1. to kiss. Snh. VII, 6 המְנַשֵּׁק he who kisses (an idol); a. fr.
    • 2. to arm, equip. Part. pass. מְנוּשָּׁק; f. מְנוּשֶּׁקֶת, pl. מְנוּשָּׁקוֹת. Cant. R. l. c. אם עסקת … ששפתיך מנ׳ וכ׳ if thou studiest the words of the Law so that thy lips be equipped (ready for contest), all shall kiss thee &c.
    • 1. to bring in close contact, to close (lips). Y. Ab. Zar. II, 41ᵈ top יש דברים שמַשִּׁיקִין וכ׳ there are things on which you must seal your mouth (v. חָשַׁק).
    • 2. (Levitical law) to restore a liquid to cleanness by contact or levelling with a clean well. Mikv. VI, 8 מביא … ומושכו ומַשִּׁיקוֹ he takes a pipe … and draws (the water from the clean pond) and makes it touch the surface of the unclean pond; Tosef. ib. V, 5. Cant. R. l. c. (expl. ישקני, may He cleanse me, v. supra) כאדם שהוא מַשִּׁיק וכ׳ as one brings in contact or levels &c., v. גֶּבֶא. Bets. II, 3 ושוין שמַשִּׁיקִין וכ׳ and they agree that you may (on the Holy Day) dip a vessel with an unclean liquid into a well so that the two surfaces are on a level, v. הַשָּׁקָה. Ḥull. 26ᵃ sq. עד שלא החמיץ מַשִּׁיקוֹ וכ׳ before it is sour, you may cleanse it by levelling &c.; a. e.

נְשַׁק

  • Targ. Gen. XXIX, 11; 13 (O. ed. Vien. נַשֵּׁיק Pa.). Targ. Prov. XXIV, 26 נִנְשְׁקוּ וכ׳ let them close the lips of &c. Targ. Job XXXI, 27; a. fr.—M. Kat. 25ᵇ נָשׁוּק, v. כֵּיפָא I. B. Bath. 74ᵃ היכא דנַשְׁקָא ארעא וכ׳ where earth and heaven meet. Y. Maas. Sh. IV, 55ᵇ bot. חמית … נשקה וכ׳ I saw in my dream one of my eyes touch the other. Gitt. 57ᵇ bot. ואֵינַשְׁקֵיה פורתא that I may kiss him a little (before he is put to death); a. fr.
    • same. Targ. O. Gen. XXXI, 28; a. e.

נֶשֶׁק

  • preced.) [hostile meeting, cmp. זָוַג, מִלְחָמָה &c.,] going to war; כלי נ׳ (or sub. כלי) weapon, armor. Y. Yeb. XV, 14ᵈ (ref. to Ps. CXL, 8) נִשְׁקוֹ של גוג the day of war against Gog (v. זִיּוּן); Yalk. Ps. 888. e.g. Psalms 140:8

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 30 distinct written forms H5401 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
וַ/יִּשַּׁק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 4:27 4
וַ/יִּשַּׁ֥ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 29:11 3
אֶשָׁ֣קְ/ךָ֔ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Song of Solomon 8:1 1
אֶשְּׁקָה Verb, Qal, Cohortative, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 Kings 19:20 1
וְ/נָ֣שְׁקָה Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Proverbs 7:13 1
וְ/נָ֥שַׁק Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Samuel 15:5 1
וַ/יְנַשֵּׁ֥ק Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 45:15 1
וַ/יְנַשֵּׁ֧ק Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 31:55 1
וַ/יְנַשֶּׁק Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 29:13 1
וַ/יִּשַּׁ֨ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Samuel 19:39 1
וַ/יִּשָּׁקֵ֑/הוּ Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Samuel 10:1 1
וַ/תִּשַּׁ֖ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Job 31:27 1
וַ/תִּשַּׁ֣ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Ruth 1:9 1
וַ/תִּשַּׁ֤ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Ruth 1:14 1
וַֽ/יִּשְּׁק֣וּ Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 Samuel 20:41 1
וַׄ/יִּׄשָּׁׄקֵ֑ׄ/הׄוּׄ Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 33:4 1
וּ/שְׁקָ/ה Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 27:26 1
יִשַּׁ֣ק Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 41:40 1
יִשָּׁ֑ק Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Proverbs 24:26 1
יִשָּׁקֵ֨/נִי֙ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Song of Solomon 1:2 1
יִשָּׁקֽוּ/ן Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Hosea 13:2 1
לְ/נַשֵּׁ֥ק Verb, Piel, Infinitive Construct Genesis 31:28 1
לִ/נְשָׁק Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 2 Samuel 20:9 1
מַשִּׁיקוֹת֙ Verb, Hiphil, Participle Active, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Ezekiel 3:13 1
נַשְּׁקוּ Verb, Piel, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Psalms 2:12 1
נָשַׁ֖ק Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Kings 19:18 1
נָשָֽׁקוּ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural Psalms 85:10 1
נֹ֣שְׁקֵי Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Construct 1 Chronicles 12:2 1
נֹֽשְׁקֵי Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Construct 2 Chronicles 17:17 1
נוֹשְׁקֵ֥י Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Construct Psalms 78:9 1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5401, 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

Derived from this word

Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint verse parallels

This word appears in 34 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 35 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.

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