סָכָל
fool
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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 7 times (88%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 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 H5530 appears — 6 distinct verses across 2 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.
Ecclesiastes 4 verses
- Ecclesiastes 2:19 סָכָ֔ל n c ms Who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have rule over all of my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.
- Ecclesiastes 7:17 סָכָ֑ל n c ms Don't be too wicked, neither be foolish. Why should you die before your time?
- Ecclesiastes 10:3 כ/ש/ה/סכל כְּ/שֶׁ/סָּכָ֥ל סָכָ֥ל prep + ptcl rel + ptcl def.art + n c ms prep + ptcl rel + n c ms n c ms Yes also, when the fool walks by the way, his understanding fails him, and he says to everyone that he is a fool.
- Ecclesiastes 10:14 וְ/הַ/סָּכָ֖ל conj + ptcl def.art + n c ms A fool also multiplies words. Man doesn't know what will be; and that which will be after him, who can tell him?
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 4:22 סְכָלִים֙ n c mp For my people are foolish, they don't know me; they are foolish children, and they have no understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
- Jeremiah 5:21 סָכָ֖ל n c ms Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and don't see; who have ears, and don't hear:
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.
At its core, סכל (çâkâl) means “fool.” Its uses cluster heavily in Ecclesiastes (67% of all occurrences). With 6 verses in 2 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. First canonically at Ecclesiastes 2:19, it enters the text early. From the same root come סכל, סכל and סכלות. Dig into 6-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5530 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 →
- 6
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 6 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 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 6 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ecclesiastes 4 verses 67%
- Jeremiah 2 verses 33%
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 6 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 67%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 33%
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: Be thou foolish 1×, Every one that he is a fool 1×, Fool 1×
- American Standard Version: Be thou foolish 1×, Fool 1×, He saith to every one that he is a fool 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Fool 3×, Foolish 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Fool 4×, Foolish 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5530 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5530 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5530 across 7 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 H5530 across 7 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.
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.
- fool
Word origin
n.m. fool (on format. cf. LagBN 48);—Je 5:21; Ec 2:19; 7:17; 10:3(×2), 14; pl. adj. סְכָלִים Je 4:22.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from סכל (çâkal) (H5528) — 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 8 distinct written forms H5530 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וְ/הַ/סָּכָ֖ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 10:14 | 1 |
| כ/ש/ה/סכל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 10:3 | 1 |
| כְּ/שֶׁ/סָּכָ֥ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 10:3 | 1 |
| סְכָלִים֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Jeremiah 4:22 | 1 |
| סָכָ֑ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 7:17 | 1 |
| סָכָ֔ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 2:19 | 1 |
| סָכָ֖ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 5:21 | 1 |
| סָכָ֥ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 10:3 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5530, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 6 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 6 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.
