סָכַל
to be foolish
‘to be foolish’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Niphal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
Person
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 2 times (25%)
- Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (25%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Piel, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (13%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 8 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5528 appears — 8 distinct verses across 6 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.
Genesis 1 verse
1 Samuel 2 verses
- 1 Samuel 13:13 נִסְכָּ֑לְתָּ Niphal pf 2ms Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you: for now would Yahweh have established your kingdom on Israel forever.
- 1 Samuel 26:21 הִסְכַּ֛לְתִּי Hiphil pf 1cs Then said Saul, I have sinned: return, my son David; for I will no more do you harm, because my life was precious in your eyes this day: behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.
2 Samuel 2 verses
- 2 Samuel 15:31 סַכֶּל Piel impv 2ms One told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. David said, Yahweh, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.
- 2 Samuel 24:10 נִסְכַּ֖לְתִּי Niphal pf 1cs David's heart struck him after that he had numbered the people. David said to Yahweh, I have sinned greatly in that which I have done: but now, Yahweh, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.
1 Chronicles 1 verse
2 Chronicles 1 verse
Isaiah 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.
סכל — transliterated çâkal — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to be foolish.” Debuting at Genesis 31:28, it then recurs through the corpus. Spanning 8 verses in 6 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in 1 Samuel (25% of all occurrences). Read the stem: it spans 3 stems, including Piel and Niphal. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5528 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 8 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 8 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 63%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 25%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 13%
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: Foolishly 2×
- American Standard Version: Foolishly 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Foolishly 2×, You have acted foolishly 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: You have acted foolishly 3×, Foolishly 2×, I have acted 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5528 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H5528 across 8 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5528 across 8 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5528 across 11 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.
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 3 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.
Piel
- Impf. יְסַכֵּל Is 44:25, Imv. סַכֶּל־נָא 2 S 15:31, make foolish, turn into foolishness. e.g. Isaiah 44:25
Niphal
- Pf. 2 ms. נִסְכַּלְתָּ 2 Ch 16:9; נִסְכָּ֑לְתָּ 1 S 13:13; 1 s. נִסְכַּלְתִּי 2 S 24:10 = 1 Ch 21:8, act or do foolishly. e.g. 2 Chronicles 16:9
Hiphil
- Pf. 2 ms. הִסְכַּלְתָּ Gn 31:28 (E), 1 s. הִסְכַּלְתִּי 1 S 26:21, do foolishly, play the fool. e.g. Genesis 31:28
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
vb. be foolish, or a fool, usually in moral or spiritual sense (Syriac ܣܟܰܠ,, Aph. act foolishly; ܣܰܟܠܴܐ foolish, etc., 𝔗 סְכַל der. species, act foolishly; סַכְלָא fool; Chr Pal Aramaic ܣܟܠ, Aph. = ἁμαρτάνω, also deriv. SchwallyIdiot. 62; Assyrian saklu, perhaps foolish, DlHWB 498; Aramaic ܣܟܰܠ, סְכַל know, be intelligent, cause to understand, etc. (der. species), cf. שׂכל; MeChrest. Targ. derives both these opp. meanings from Arabic شَكْلٌ form, likeness Gerber178 thinks Heb. vb. denom.);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כסל (kâçal) (H3688) — to be foolish.
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.
סָכַל I
- to be bright.
- to look at, observe; to reflect, keep in mind. Snh. 92ᵃ המִסְתַּכֵּל בערוה he who looks at his nakedness; (oth. opin.: who allows his obscene thoughts to dwell on a woman forbidden to him). Ber. 10ᵃ נ׳ בכוכבים וכ׳ he looked at the stars and planets and recited a song. Ib. נ׳ ביום המיתה he speculated on the day of death. Midr. Till. to Ps. XXXII (ref. to Prov. XV, 24) מי שהוא מסתכל למעלה he who looks on high (prays to God); בניו … שנִסְתַּכְּלוּ וכ׳ the sons of Korah who looked on high escaped. Lev. R. s. 34 (ref. to Ps. XLI, 2) אשרי נותן … הוי מסתכל בו וכ׳ it does not say, ‘blessed who gives to the poor’, but, ‘blessed who looks at the poor’, speculates how to do him good; a. fr.—V. שָׂכַל. e.g. Proverbs 15:24
סְכַל
- , to see clearly, be sensible. Targ. Ps. XXXVI, 4 Ms. (ed. למִשְׂכַּל). Targ. Prov. VIII, 5 נִסְכְּלוּן Ms. (ed. נִסְתַּכְּ׳).
- 1. to become wise. Targ. Ps. XCIV, 8 Ms. (ed. תַּשְׂכִּיל׳).
- 2. to explain, give to understand. Targ. Job VI, 24.
- to look at, reflect; to become wise. Targ. Prov. l. c., v. supra. Targ. Is. I, 3. Targ. O. Ex. III, 6 (Y. מִסְתְּכֵי); a. fr.—Gen. R. s. 86, end [read:] … מִסְתַּכְּלִין אתון ואנא מְסְתַּכֵּל בניביה של אותה דובה you look at that which is on her back, but I look at that bear’s tusks; Yalk. ib. 145. Pes. 113ᵇ [read:] אינהי מִסְתַּכְּלָן בהו ואינהו … לאִסְתַּכּוּלֵי בהו (v. Rabb. D. S. a. l.) they looked at them (the shoemakers), but the latter did not lift up their eyes to look at them. Y. Keth. XII, 35ᵇ top תלא עינוי מִסְתַּכְּלָא he lifted up his eyes in order to observe; Y. Kil. IX, 32ᶜ top מִסְתַּכְּלָה; a. fr.
סָכַל II
- , Hithpa. הִסְתַּכֵּל to become confused. Meg. 2ᵃ הואיל ומִסְתַּכְּלִין וכ׳ because (if the M’gillah were read on any other day) they might be confused by it (in their calculations as to Passover), therefore they must read it on its proper day; [oth. explan., v. Rashi and Alfasi a. l.—Var. ומסתכנין, v. סָכַן II]; Tosef. ib. I, 3 הואיל ומסתכלין בה אין מתכנסין אלא בזמנה Var. (ed. Zuck. ומתכנסין, read with Var. ומסתכנין).
סְכַל ²
- , to be confused, to be foolish.
- to act foolishly. Targ. Gen. XXXI, 28.
- to be confused, foolish. Targ. II Sam. XXIV, 10. Targ. I Sam. XXVI, 21.
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 7 distinct written forms H5528 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| נִסְכַּ֖לְתִּי | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | 1 Chronicles 21:8 | 2 |
| הִסְכַּ֛לְתִּי | Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | 1 Samuel 26:21 | 1 |
| הִסְכַּ֥לְתָּֽ | Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Genesis 31:28 | 1 |
| יְשַׂכֵּֽל | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Isaiah 44:25 | 1 |
| נִסְכַּ֣לְתָּ | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | 2 Chronicles 16:9 | 1 |
| נִסְכָּ֑לְתָּ | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | 1 Samuel 13:13 | 1 |
| סַכֶּל | Verb, Piel, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | 2 Samuel 15:31 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5528, 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 10 — not the complete family. 3 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
