סוֹף
end
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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
1 distinct verse where H5490 appears in the Absolute state, across 1 book. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Ecclesiastes 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.
“end” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun סוף (çôwph). A scarce word — 5 verses in all of the Hebrew Bible. More than half of its appearances fall in Ecclesiastes. Scripture first uses it in 2 Chronicles 20:16. It shares a root with סוף, סוף and סוף. See the sense tree, 5-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5490 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 →
- 5
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 5 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,337
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,337 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 5 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ecclesiastes 3 verses 60%
- 2 Chronicles 1 verse 20%
- Joel 1 verse 20%
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 5 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 80%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 20%
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: End 2×
- American Standard Version: End 2×, Is the end 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: End 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: End of 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5490 across 5 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5490 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5490 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H5490 across 5 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 BDB
The 1 sense BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- end, conclusion
Word origin
n.m. Ec 7:2 end, late synon. of קֵץ;—ס׳ abs. Ec 3:11, cstr. 2 Ch 20:16 + 2 times; sf. סֹפוֹ Jo 2:26;—end of wady 2 Ch 20:16, of invading swarm Jo 2:20; of God’s work מֵרֹאשׁ וְעַד־סוֹף Ec 3:11; death as end of all men 7:2; = conclusion, sum of instruction 12:13. Cf. Biblical Aramaic.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from סוף (çûwph) (H5486) — to cease.
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.
סוּף I
- v. סוּף II) reed, bulrush.—ים ס׳ the sea of Suf (Red Sea). Sot. 12ᵃ sq. (ref. to בסוף, Ex. II, 3) ר"א אומר ים ס׳ וכ׳ R. E. says, that means the sea; R. S. says, it means ăgam (v. אֲגַם II, 2); Ex. R. s. 1. Ex. R. s. 22 קריעת ים ס׳ the splitting of the Red Sea (for the passage of the Israelites); Y. Ber. I, 3ᵈ bot.; a. fr. e.g. Exodus 2:3
סוּף
- only with יַם, יַמָּא. Targ. Ex. XIII, 18. Targ. Jon. II, 6; a. fr.
סוּף II
- (b. h.) to cut; to be cut off; to end. Tanḥ. B’resh. 12 וסָפָה הטובים וכ׳ and destroys the good and the bad.
- to cut, diminish; to exterminate (corresp. to b. h. כִּלָּה). Gen. R. s. 100 מי יכול לסַיֵּיף וכ׳ who can annihilate the dust?… the beasts of the field? &c. Gen. R. s. 42 מה אתה הולך ומְסַיֵּיף את עצמך וכ׳ Var. in Yalk. ib. 73 for מסרס (ed. מסיים) why wilt thou reduce (weaken) thyself among thy enemies? (v.Tanḥ. Tanḥ. Vayera 3).—Part. pass. מְסוּיָּיף (denom. of סוֹף); f. pl. מְסוּיָּיפוֹת left to the end, ripening late; opp. בַּכִּיר, בִּכּוּרָה. Y. Dem. I, beg. 21ᶜ הבכירות והמס׳ (Tosef. ib. I, 3 הבכורות והסייפות). Y. Shebi. IV, end, 35ᶜ; a. fr.
- to be late in ripening, to be left on the tree beyond cutting time. Y. Dem. I, beg., 21ᶜ נִסְתַּיְּיפוּ וכ׳, v. סוֹף a. סוֹפֶת.
סוּף ²
- 1. to finish; to destroy. Targ. Y. II, Num. XXXIII, 52 תְּסוּפוּן (Y. I תִּסְפּוּן a. תְּסַיְּיפוּן). Targ. Lam. IV, 11; a. e.
- 2. to cease. Targ. Is. XIV, 4. Targ. Lev. XXVI, 20. Targ. Prov. II, 22; a. fr.—Part. סָיֵיף. Ib. XI, 31; a. e.—Koh. R. to X, 15 מביני … סָפַת וכ׳ between the two (disputing) that unfortunate woman (Jephthah’s daughter) perished; Lev. R. s. 37, end בין דין לדין ספת וכ׳ (some ed. נספת, corr. acc.).
- to finish; to consume, ruin. Targ. Y. Gen. XLIV, 12 Ar. (ed. פסק). Targ. Y. Lev. XIX, 9. Ib. XXVI, 16; a. e.—Part. pass. מְסַיַּיף. Targ. I Kings XIV, 10.—Yalk. Gen. 133 סַיְּיפַת, v. סוּב.
- same. Targ. O. Deut. XXXII, 22 (ed. Berl. אַסֵּ׳; ed. Vien. אָסֵ׳; h. text אכלה). Ib. 23 (h. text אספה). Targ. Zeph. I, 3; a. fr.
סוֹף
- preced.)
- 1. end. Yeb. XVI, 4 (121ᵃ) מים … שאין להם ס׳ waters without end (the shores of which you cannot see from all sides). Ned. 62ᵃ וס׳ הכבוד לבא and honor will finally come of itself. Gen. R. s. 71, beg. (ref. to Ps. LXIX, 34) לא ראשו … סוֹפוֹ ולא סופו ראשו the first clause of this verse does not correspond (in syntactical construction) to its final clause &c. Sifra K’dosh. ch. III, Par. 2 אם גנבת סוֹפְךָ לכחש וכ׳ if thou stealest, thou wilt finally deny &c. Kidd. 31ᵃ מס׳ דברך, v. נָכַר. Meg. 7ᵃ בתחלה קבעוה בשושן וְלִבְסוֹף וכ׳ at first they established it (the festival of Purim) in Shushan, and then for the whole (Jewish) world; a. v. fr.—לא ס׳ דבר אלא … this is not the end of it …, but. Gen. R. s. 38 (ref. to Prov. XVII, 13) לא ס׳ ד׳ משיב וכ׳ after all, not only he who requites evil for good, but even he who requites evil for evil &c. Y. Shebi. III, end, 34ᵈ; a. fr. e.g. Psalms 69:34
- 2. remnant, esp. pl. סוֹפִין fruit remaining on the tree after harvest time, late fruit. Y. Yeb. XII, 12ᵈ bot. קידש בגופו של ס׳ (prob. to be read בנוֹפוֹ) if one betrothed a woman, giving as a consideration a branch of a tree of his containing remainders (mostly worthless). Pes. 6ᵇ סוֹפֵי … ומשמר וכ׳ if there are in a man’s field late figs, but he watches his field for the sake of the grapes; v. סוֹפֶת.—[Tosef. Kel. B. Mets. II, 8 סופין ed. Zolk., read: סוֹבִין.]
סוֹף ²
- Targ. Job XXVIII, 3; a. fr.—Y. Snh. X, 29ᵃ bot. יהא סוֹפֵיה וכ׳, v. חֲנַק. Ab. Zar. 41ᵃ מעיקרא … ולבס׳ וכ׳ at first …, but finally &c.; a. fr.
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 5 distinct written forms H5490 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| בְּ/ס֣וֹף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | 2 Chronicles 20:16 | 1 |
| וְ/סֹפ֖/וֹ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Joel 2:20 | 1 |
| ס֣וֹף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ecclesiastes 7:2 | 1 |
| ס֥וֹף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ecclesiastes 12:13 | 1 |
| סֽוֹף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 3:11 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5490, 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
Derived from this word
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 → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 5 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 5 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.
