אֲמָנָה
faith
also: support, sure, certain fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
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.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H548 appears — 2 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.
Nehemiah 2 verses
- Nehemiah 9:38 אֲמָנָ֖ה n c fs Yet for all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, our Levites, [and] our priests, seal to it.
- Nehemiah 11:23 וַ/אֲמָנָ֥ה conj + n c fs For there was a commandment from the king concerning them, and a settled provision for the singers, as every day required.
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.
אמנה (ʼămânâh) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “faith.” It occurs a mere 2 verses across Scripture. Nehemiah dominates its distribution — 2 of 2 verses. Scripture first uses it in Nehemiah 9:38. Beyond its headline sense, its full sense range takes in “support”, “sure”, and “certain”. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H548 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 →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,807
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,807 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 2 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Nehemiah 2 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 2 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 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).
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†: Concerning them that a certain portion 1×, Sure 1×
- American Standard Version†: Concerning them 1×, Sure 1×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Binding agreement 1×, Ordinance 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Faithful 1×, Support 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H548 across 2† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H548 across 2† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H548 across 2† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H548 across 2† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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.
אמנה I faith, support.
- 1. אֲנַחְנוּ כֹּרְתִים אֲמָנָה we are plighting faith (make a sure covenant AV RV) Ne 10:1. e.g. Nehemiah 10:1
- 2. א׳ עַל המ׳ support, fixed provision, for the singers Ne 11:23. e.g. Nehemiah 11:23
אמנה II fl.
- 1. a river (constant? cf. Is 33:16) flowing down from Antilebanon into the plain of Damascus 2 K 5:12 (Qr; אֲבָנָה Kt), the Gr. Chrysorrhoas, mod. Arabic Nahr Baradâ. e.g. Isaiah 33:16
- 2. the region from which it flows Ct 4:8. e.g. Song of Solomon 4:8
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. faith, support.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אמן (ʼâmên) (H543) — truly.
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.
אֲמָנָה
- v. preced.)
- 1. faith, trust. B. Bath. 48ᵇ; Keth. 19ᵇ if witnesses say א׳ היו דברינו our statement (over our signatures as to having seen the loan handed over) was a matter of trust (that the negotiation would be consummated afterwards). Ib. שטר א׳ a bill of indebtedness signed on trust (that the loan would be consummated subsequently). B. Mets. 63ᵃ א׳ בפירות advanced payment at present prices for future delivery; א׳ בדמים with the option of paying the difference. Gen. R. s. 100 end, שמר א׳ to deal in good faith with. Tosef. B. Bath. V, 8 אֲמָנַת המדות honesty in measures. B. Mets. 49ᵃ מחוסרי א׳ (the way of) those lacking honesty (unfair dealing); Bekh. 13ᵇ מחוסר א׳; a. fr.
- 2. faith in Providence. Mekh. B’shall. s. 6, v. הַאֲמָנָה. Sot. 48ᵇ אנשי א׳ men of faith, trusting in God; ib. קטני א׳ wanting in faith; Gen. R. s. 32 מחוסר א׳ same; a. fr. Cmp. אֱמוּנָה, הַאֲמָנָה.
אֲמָנָה II
- 1. (b. h.) Amanah, Abanah (Banas), a river crossing the city of Damascus. (Banas), a river crossing the city of Damascus. Targ. II Kings V, 12.
- 2. אֲמָנָה, (אמנם) אֲמָנוֹס, אֲמָנוֹן Amanah, hellenized Amanos, Amanon &c. (Banias), a mountain range forming the northern limits of the Holy Land. Tosef. Ter. II, 12 אמנוס (Var. אמנון, סמנון). Ib. Ḥall. II, 11 אמנוס (Var. אמנון). Git. 8ᵃ ון … (Ar. אמנים, סמנים); Y. Ḥall. IV, 60ᵃ bot. אמנם (ref. to אמנה Cant. IV, 8). Shebi. VI, 1; Ḥall. IV, 8 (Ms. M. ם …); Ex. R. s. 23. v. טַוְורוֹס. e.g. Song of Solomon 4:8
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 2 distinct written forms H548 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֲמָנָ֖ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Nehemiah 9:38 | 1 |
| וַ/אֲמָנָ֥ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Nehemiah 11:23 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H548, 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
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
