נָתִיב
path
‘path’ 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
- 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
- Both
- Attested as both masculine and feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H5410 appears in the Book of Proverbs — 6 distinct verses. 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.
Proverbs
- Proverbs 1:15 מִ/נְּתִיבָתָֽ/ם prep + n c bs cs + sfx pers 3mp My son, don't walk in the way with them. Keep your foot from their path,
- Proverbs 3:17 נְתִ֖יבוֹתֶ֣י/הָ n c bp cs + sfx pers 3fs Her ways are ways of pleasantness. All her paths are peace.
- Proverbs 7:25 בִּ/נְתִיבוֹתֶֽי/הָ prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 3fs Don't let your heart turn to her ways. Don't go astray in her paths,
- Proverbs 8:2 נְתִיב֣וֹת n c bp On the top of high places by the way, Where the paths meet, she stands.
- Proverbs 8:20 נְתִיב֥וֹת n c bp cs I walk in the way of righteousness, In the midst of the paths of justice;
- Proverbs 12:28 נְתִיבָ֣ה n c bs In the way of righteousness is life; In its path there is no death.
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.
נתיב — transliterated nâthîyb — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “path.” Its earliest occurrence is Judges 5:6. Spanning 26 verses in 8 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Job (27% of all occurrences). The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 26-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5410 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 →
- 26
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 26 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,251
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,251 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 26 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 26 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 18 verses · 69%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 8 verses · 31%
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†: Paths 12×, Path 6×, Way 2×
- American Standard Version†: Path 7×, Paths 7×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Paths 9×, Path 8×, Way 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Paths 11×, Path 9×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5410 across 25† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 H5410 across 25† 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 H5410 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 3 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5410 across 29† 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.
- 1. lit. הֹלְכֵי נְתִיבוֹת Ju 5:6 goers on paths, i.e. travellers, Pr 8:2 Is 58:12 (Oort Lag Klo נְתִיצוֹת but against this Du); path through sea Is 43:16 (in fig.); of path to house of (personif.) light and darkness Jb 38:20. e.g. Judges 5:6
- 2. often ‖ דֶּרֶךְ:
- a. = course of life Jb 19:8; 30:13 La 3:9 ψ 119:105; 142:4, of Isr. Ho 2:8; of path of God’s appointment Is 42:16. e.g. Job 19:8
- b. of moral action, and character: paths of wisdom Pr 3:17, justice 8:20 (‖ אֹרַח צְדָקָה); light Jb 24:13; נ׳ עוֹלָם Je 6:16 (‖ דֶּרֶךְ הַטּוֹב); path of wicked Pr 1:15, Is 59:8 (crooked), path of adulteress Pr 7:25; נְתִיבוֹת Je 18:15 is rendered ‘by-paths,’ by Gf Rothst al.; דֶּרֶךְ לֹא סְלוּלָה.—נְתִיבָהֿ Pr 12:28 v. נָתִיב. e.g. Proverbs 3:17
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. Jb 28:7 path, pathway (as raised);—abs. נ׳ Jb 18:10 + 3 times; cstr. נְתִיב ψ 119:35; sf. 3 fs. נְתִיבָהֿ Pr 12:28 (si vera l., v. infr.; on om. of Mappik v. Ges§ 91 e, v. infr.);—path Jb 18:10 (fig.), 28:7; 41:24 (track); ψ 78:50 (fig.); נְתִיב מִצְוֹתֶיךָ ψ 119:35 the path of thy commands; דֶּרֶךְ נְתִיבָה אַל־מָוֶת Pr 12:28 the journey of her pathway is no-death! (‖ בְּאֹרַח צְדָקָה חַיִּים) Ew Be De, v. אַל p. 39 a supr.; others read אֶל־, and eithr transl. נ׳ by-paths (Hi Str), or substitute a syn. of ‘wickedness’ (cf. Now Frankenb; PerlesAnalekten. 87 f. נִתְעָבִים after Levy ChWB i. 28 b).
I. n.f. id.;—abs. נ׳ Is 43:16, sf. נְתִיבָתִי Jb 30:13 + 2 times, נְתִיבָתָם Pr 1:15; pl. abs. נְתִיבוֹת Pr 8:2 +; cstr. id. Jb 38:20 +; sf. נְתִיבֹתַי Jb 19:8 La 3:9, נְתִיבֹתָיו Jb 24:13, etc.;—path:
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: from an unused root meaning to tramp
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.
נְתַב
- = נְשַׁב, to blow. Targ. Ps. CXXIX, 6 (ed. Wil. נָתֵק). Ib. CIII, 16 (ed. Wil. נתכת, some ed. תבת, corr. acc.).
- same. Targ. Y. I Deut. XXXII, 2 (ed. Vien. דמִינַּתְבִין Ithpe:). Targ. Y. Gen. I, 2 (ed. Vien. מֵנַתְבָא).
- to cause to blow. Targ. Ps. CXLVII, 18 (Ms. Pa.).
- to be blown, v. supra.—[Targ. Y. Gen. XII, 10 לאיתנתבא, read: לאִיתּוֹתָבָא, v. יְתֵב.]
נָתִיב
- (b. h.) highway, road. Keth. 8ᵇ נ׳ הוא מששת וכ׳ such is the road (the course of events) from the days of creation. Ex. R. s. 30 התורה אומרה באי זה נ׳ אני מהלכת the Torah says, what road do I follow?; a. e.—Pl. נְתִיבוֹת. Ib.
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 23 distinct written forms H5410 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 22 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 26 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
- Judges 5:6
- Job 18:10
- Psalms 142:3
- Proverbs 1:15
- Isaiah 42:16
- Jeremiah 6:16
- Lamentations 3:9
- Hosea 2:6
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.
