סַף
basin
also: a spreading out, goblet, bowl fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
23 distinct verses where H5592 appears in the Absolute state, across 13 books. 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.
Exodus 1 verse
Judges 1 verse
2 Samuel 1 verse
1 Kings 1 verse
2 Kings 4 verses
- 2 Kings 12:9 הַ/סַּ֔ף ptcl def.art + n c ms But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of Yahweh: and the priests who kept the threshold put therein all the money that was brought into the house of Yahweh.
- 2 Kings 22:4 הַ/סַּ֖ף ptcl def.art + n c ms Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may sum the money which is brought into the house of Yahweh, which the keepers of the threshold have gathered of the people:
- 2 Kings 23:4 הַ/סַּף֒ ptcl def.art + n c ms The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring forth out of the temple of Yahweh all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of the sky, and he burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried the ashes of them to Bethel.
- 2 Kings 25:18 הַ/סַּֽף ptcl def.art + n c ms The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold:
1 Chronicles 2 verses
- 1 Chronicles 9:19 הַ/סִּפִּ֖ים ptcl def.art + n c mp Shallum the son of Kore, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah, and his brothers, of his father's house, the Korahites, were over the work of the service, keepers of the thresholds of the tent: and their fathers had been over the camp of Yahweh, keepers of the entry.
- 1 Chronicles 9:22 בַּ/סִּפִּ֔ים prep det + n c mp All these who were chosen to be porters in the thresholds were two hundred and twelve. These were reckoned by genealogy in their villages, whom David and Samuel the seer did ordain in their office of trust.
2 Chronicles 3 verses
- 2 Chronicles 3:7 הַ/סִּפִּ֛ים ptcl def.art + n c mp He overlaid also the house, the beams, the thresholds, and the walls of it, and the doors of it, with gold; and engraved cherubim on the walls.
- 2 Chronicles 23:4 הַ/סִּפִּֽים ptcl def.art + n c mp This is the thing that you shall do: a third part of you, who come in on the Sabbath, of the priests and of the Levites, shall be porters of the thresholds;
- 2 Chronicles 34:9 הַ/סַּ֜ף ptcl def.art + n c ms They came to Hilkiah the high priest, and delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin, and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Esther 2 verses
- Esther 2:21 הַ/סַּ֔ף ptcl def.art + n c ms In those days, while Mordecai was sitting in the king's gate, two of the king's chamberlains, Bigthan and Teresh, of those who kept the threshold, were angry, and sought to lay hands on the king Ahasuerus.
- Esther 6:2 הַ/סַּ֑ף ptcl def.art + n c ms It was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains, of those who kept the threshold, who had sought to lay hands on the king Ahasuerus.
Isaiah 1 verse
Jeremiah 3 verses
- Jeremiah 35:4 הַ/סַּֽף ptcl def.art + n c ms and I brought them into the house of Yahweh, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the threshold.
- Jeremiah 52:19 הַ֠/סִּפִּים ptcl def.art + n c mp The cups, and the fire pans, and the basins, and the pots, and the lampstands, and the spoons, and the bowls-that which was of gold, in gold, and that which was of silver, in silver,-the captain of the guard took away.
- Jeremiah 52:24 הַ/סַּֽף ptcl def.art + n c ms The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold:
Ezekiel 2 verses
- Ezekiel 40:6 סַ֣ף סַ֣ף n c ms cs n c ms Then came he to the gate which looks toward the east, and went up the steps of it: and he measured the threshold of the gate, one reed broad; and the other threshold, one reed broad.
- Ezekiel 41:16 הַ/סִּפִּ֡ים הַ/סַּ֛ף ptcl def.art + n c mp ptcl def.art + n c ms the thresholds, and the closed windows, and the galleries round about on their three stories, over against the threshold, with wood ceilings round about, and [from] the ground up to the windows, (now the windows were covered),
Amos 1 verse
Zephaniah 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.
סף — transliterated çaph — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “basin.” Debuting at Exodus 12:22, it then recurs through the corpus. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 28 verses — moderately common. BDB distinguishes 2 senses; alongside “basin” it spans “a spreading out”, “goblet”, and “bowl”. It shares a root with ספף, סף and ספי. Dig into 28-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5592 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 →
- 28
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 28 distinct verses.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,086
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,086 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 28 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 2 Kings 5 verses 18%
- Ezekiel 4 verses 14%
- 2 Chronicles 3 verses 11%
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 28 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 20 verses · 71%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 7 verses · 25%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 4%
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 3 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†: Door 10×, Threshold 5×, Basons 2×
- American Standard Version†: Threshold 16×, Thresholds 7×, Basins 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Threshold 7×, Thresholds 5×, Basins 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Threshold 10×, Thresholds 4×, Basins 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5592 across 32† 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5592 across 32† 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5592 across 26† 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 6 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5592 across 30† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 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 0 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.
סף I basin, goblet (NH סַף
סף II m. a Philistine, 2 S 21
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
II. n.m. basin, goblet (NH סַף; Ph. סף (Inscr. of Tyre(1), 5, 6) SchrödZMG xxxix (1885), 917 f. Cl-Gann Annales du Musée Guimet x. 511 = Recueil d’arch. orient. (1886), 89 HalRÉJ xii. 107 Bloch; but Lzb330 door-sill);—ס׳ abs. basin Ex 12:22(×2) (J; containing blood of passover lamb); cstr. סַף־רַעַל Zc 12:2 goblet of reeling (intoxicating, fig.), prob. also Hb 2:15, where read מִסַּף תֲמָֽתְךָ from the goblet of thy fury (for MT מְסַפֵּחַ ח׳, v. I. ספח); pl. abs. סַפּוֹת 2 S 17:28 basins for ordinary use; הַסִּפִּים Je 52:19, הַסִּפּוֹת 1 K 7:50 and cstr. סִפּוֹת כֶּסֶף 2 K 12:14, of temple utensils.
III. n.m. Am 9:1 threshold, sill (NH id.; Ph. v. Lzb i. סַף; Aramaic סִפָּא, ܣܶܦܳܐ, (sepo,) Arabic sippu Dl 509, all id.);—abs. ס׳ 2 K 12:10 +, also הַסָּ֑ף Ju 19:27 + 3 times (Baer Ginsb), הַסָּ֑ף 2 K 25:8; sf. סִפִּי Ez 43:8, סִפָּם v 8; pl. סִפִּים Am 9:1; Is 6:4 + 6 times Ez Ch;—threshold, sill Ju 19:27; Am 9:1; Is 6:4 Ez 41:16(×2); 43:8(×2); 2 Ch 3:7, ס׳הַבַּיִת 1 K 14:17, ס׳ הַשַּׁעַר Ez 40:6, 7, cf. v 6 b; שֹׁמֵר הַסַּף = door-keeper, an important temple official, Je 35:4, so שֹׁמְרֵי הַסּ׳ 2 K 12:10 (priests), 22:4 = 2 Ch 34:9 (Levites!), 2 K 23:4; 25:18 = Je 52:24; in Persia, of palace Est 2:21; 6:2; of tabern. שׁ׳ הַסִּפִּים 1 Ch 9:19; שֹׁעֲרֵי הַסּ׳ 2 Ch 23:4 (Levites), שֹׁעֲרִים בַּסּ׳ 1 Ch 9:22; coll. חֹרֶב בַּסָּ֑ף Zp 2:14 desolation in the thresholds.
IV. n.pr.m. a Philistine, 2 S 21:18 (𝔊 τὸν Σεφ(ε); 𝔊L τοὺς ἐπισυνηγμένους), = סִפַּי 1 Ch 20:4 (𝔊 τὸν Σαφουτ, A Σαφφι, 𝔊L Σαπφι).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from ספף (çâphaph) (H5605) — to guard threshold.
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.
סַף
- part. a. perf. of סוּף.
סַף ²
- , v. סוּף, to cut, hollow out; also to put ends together, join)
- 1. door-sill;
- 2. bowl. Mekh. Bo, s. 6 (ref. to Ex. XII, 22) מניד הכתוב … ואין סף אלא אסקופה the text intimates that he loosens and digs a hole on the side of the threshold and slaughters over it, for saf means (a cavity made in) the threshold. Ib. אין סף אלא כלי saf means a vessel; Y. Pes. IX, 36ᵈ bot., sq. e.g. Exodus 12:22
- 3. pl. סִפִּים, סִפִּין, סִי׳ [cut stones, cmp. גָּזִית,] paving-blocks, stone-pavement. Midr. Till. to Ps. LXXVIII, 45 והס׳ נבקעין וכ׳ and the blocks burst before them (the frogs). Midr. Till. to Ps. CV, 30 בתי הס׳ houses which had stone pavements; (Yalk. ib. 820 פספסין; Ex. R. s. 10 פסיפס).
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 27 distinct written forms H5592 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5592, 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
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 → 2 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 27 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 28 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
- Exodus 12:22
- Judges 19:27
- 2 Samuel 17:28
- 1 Kings 7:50
- 2 Kings 12:9
- 1 Chronicles 9:19
- 2 Chronicles 3:7
- Esther 2:21
- Isaiah 6:4
- Jeremiah 35:4
- Ezekiel 40:6
- Amos 9:1
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.
