אֲמַר

to say

H560 Strong's Hebrew

ʼămar Transliteration

/am-ar'/ Pronunciation

Usage in the Hebrew Bible 71 appearances

Definition — BDB

(Peal) to say, to speak, to command, to tell, to relate

Cite this entry

Strong's H560 — אמר (ʼămar), "to say". Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906). Lemma, https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H560.

Show BibTeX & RIS

BibTeX

@misc{lemma-H560,
  author       = {Lemma},
  title        = {H560 אמר (ʼămar) — to say},
  howpublished = {\url{https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H560}},
  note         = {Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906). Lemma interlinear Bible study tool}
}

RIS

TY  - GEN
AU  - Lemma
TI  - H560 — אמר (ʼămar), "to say"
PB  - Lemma
N1  - Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906)
UR  - https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H560
ER  -

Compare with another word →

Grammar key — what these labels mean

Verb: An action or state-of-being word.

Qal: The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).

Participle Active: A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
Perfect: A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
Imperative: A direct command (“write!”).
Infinitive Construct: A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
Imperfect: An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).

Absolute: The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.

3rd Person: The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
2nd Person: The one addressed (“you”).
1st Person: The speaker (“I / we”).

Masculine: Grammatically masculine.
Common: Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Feminine: Grammatically feminine.

Singular: One.
Plural: More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).

Grammatical forms 13 distinct

Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 28 times (39%)
Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 14 times (20%)
Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 13 times (18%)
Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 3 times (4%)
Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 3 times (4%)
Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 2 times (3%)
Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Plural 2 times (3%)
Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (1%)

+5 more forms (5 occurrences)

Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 71 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.

Every verse where H560 appears — 65 distinct verses across 3 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.

Ezra 5 verses

Jeremiah 1 verse

Jeremiah 10:11 תֵּאמְר֣וּן Qal impf 2mp Thus shall you say to them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.

Daniel 59 verses

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.

The Hebrew verb אמר centers on the idea of “to say.” Daniel dominates its distribution — 59 of 65 verses. Spanning 65 verses in 3 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Its earliest occurrence is Ezra 5:3. Related forms include אמר, אמיר and אמר. Dig into 65-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890

command

Modern gloss

to say

About this word

Strong's H560 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 →

65: distinct verses; The word appears in 65 distinct verses.
3 / 39: OT books; The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
Ezra 5:3: first appearance; The earliest occurrence is in Ezra 5:3.
Daniel 7:23: last appearance; The latest occurrence is in Daniel 7:23.
#558: by frequency; Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 558 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 65 occurrences in the concordance →

Most concentrated in

Daniel 59 verses 91%
Ezra 5 verses 8%
Jeremiah 1 verse 2%

By section of the Old Testament

Pentateuch 0 · 0%
Historical 5 · 8%
Wisdom 0 · 0%
Prophets 60 · 92%

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 65 distinct verses.

Writings (Ketuvim) 64 verses · 98%
Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 2%

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: Said 38×, Commanded 9×, Tell 3×
American Standard Version: Said 34×, Commanded 9×, Tell 3×
Berean Standard Bible: Said 9×, Asked 6×, Tell 3×
unfoldingWord Literal Text: Said 34×, Gave an order 3×, He said 3×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H560 across 71 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Said” 38×
“Commanded” 9×
“Tell” 3×
“Saying” 2×
“Speak” 2×
“Told” 2×

Plus 15 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 H560 across 71 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Said” 34×
“Commanded” 9×
“Tell” 3×
“He said” 2×
“Saying” 2×
“Speak” 2×
“Told” 2×

Plus 17 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 H560 across 47 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Said” 9×
“Asked” 6×
“Tell” 3×
“Command” 2×
“Gave orders” 2×

Plus 25 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 24 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H560 across 72 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Said” 34×
“Gave an order” 3×
“He said” 3×
“Tell” 3×
“He commanded” 2×
“Saying” 2×
“Spoke” 2×
“Tell me” 2×
“Told” 2×
“We said” 2×

Plus 17 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.

(Peal) to say, to speak, to command, to tell, to relate

Word origin

אֲמַר 71 vb. say, tell, command

— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.

Derived from אמר (ʼâmar) (H559) — to say.

Part of speech: Verb TWOT: 2585

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.

אָמַר I

(a) to join, knot; to be knotted, thick; b) to heap up; c) transf. to join words, compose, cmp. דבר; d) to contract, bargain, exchange. [As to Assyr. to see, cmp. חמא.])
1. to speak, think, say, relate &c. … א׳ ר׳ … א׳ ר׳ Rabbi … related in the name of R. … Ber. 3ᵇ; a. v. fr.—Part. pass. אָמוּר expression. Yoma 70ᵇ, a. fr. הוא הא׳ וכ׳ it is the same expression (‘one ram’) used here and in the Book of Numbers. Sifré Deut. s. 334, a. fr. אֱמוֹר מעתה say from now, i.e. from this draw the conclusion. Gen. R. s. 39 תאמר שהבירה וכ׳ (usu. שמא תאמר) will you say (is it possible), this castle has no commander?—אֲמוּרִים דברים במה (abbr. בד׳'א) in what case are these words said? i.e. this applies only. Ḥull. 3ᵃ; a. fr.—זאת אוֹמֶרֶת this tells, i.e. this proves. Ber. 11ᵇ; a. fr.—אָמְרוּ it is said, told &c.; v. next w.—Inf. לוֹמַר = לֵאמֹר. Ḥag. 14ᵇ; a. fr.
2. to vow, devote. אָמוּר (לגבוה) devoted to the Lord. Succ. 55ᵇ; v. אֲמִירָה I, 3, a. אֵימוּרִים.
- (b. h.) to be said, to read … נא׳ כאן … ונ׳ להלן we read here … and we read there … (the same expression is used here and there in the Scriptural text). Ber. 9ᵃ; a. v. fr.—שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (abbr. שנ׳, שנא׳) for it is said in the Scriptures (as evidence in favor of an opinion). Snh. X, 1; a. v. fr.; also כמה שנ׳ (כמו) as it is said.—מִשּׁוּם שנ׳ because it is said in the Scriptures, i.e. you may possibly be misled by a certain expression to think …, therefore another term is used in its stead in an analogous case, or added to the ambiguous word; v. שׁוּם.

אֲמַר

1) as preced. 1). Targ. Gen. I, 3; a. v. fr.—א׳ מר above you quoted an authority, or, it has been stated. Ber. 2ᵃ; a. fr.—א׳ קרא the Scripture says. Ib. 13ᵃ; a. fr.—Y. Orl. III, end, 63ᵇ, a. fr. אמרונה בשם … (in Bab. heb. אֲמָרוּהָ) they said it in behalf of … i.e. as a tradition.—Y. Ber. I, 2ᵈ מילתיה אמרה his word (statement, opinion &c.) proves.—הדא אמרה = זאת אומרת; v. preced.—אַמְרֵי (h. אָמְרוּ) they say, it is said. Sabb. 19ᵃ אמרו עליו על … ואמרי לה וכ׳ it is told about R. …, and another relation refers this to R.—; a. fr.—קאמר, קאמרי &c. = קא אמר &c. Ḥull. 85ᵃ; a. fr.—מנא תימרא whence dost thou prove? Sabb. 23ᵃ; a. fr.—Inf. מֵימַר, מֵימְרָא. סבר מ׳, סבר למ׳ originally he was of the opinion. Y. Sabb. VI, 8ᶜ top; Keth. 87ᵇ; a. v. fr.—לְמֵימְרָא does this mean to say? Sabb. 15ᵇ; a. fr. לא אמרן אלא … אבל … this has been said, i.e. this applies only to a case … but if … Ber. 43ᵇ; a. fr.—כְּלוֹמַר as if saying, meaning to say, viz; v. כִּילּוּ.—Y. Kil. IV, 32ᶜ bot. אימורין לבני וכ׳ say ye to &c.—מאי איכא למימר, v. אִיכָּא; Answ. אֵימוּר say … Sabb. 6ᵃ; a. fr.—Hor. 13ᵃ א׳ כולה who orders every thing (as an etymol. of אֲמַרְכָּל).—2) to praise, proclaim. Targ. Is. VIII, 13; a. fr.—Part. pass. אָמִיר q. v.
- , contr. אִתְּמַר, אִיתְּ׳ it is said, taught. Targ. Job XXXIV, 31.—Y. Yoma V, end, 43ᵃ אתאמרת, contr. אִתַּמְרַת it has been said with refer. to the opinion of …—אִתְּ׳, אִיתְּ׳ it has been said (above);we have been taught. Succ. 15ᵃ; a. fr.
- same. Targ. Gen. XXII, 14; a. e.

אָמַר II

, v. אָמַר I, a) to be thick, strong.
- 1. to thrive; to boast, vaunt, be oppressive (cmp. Ps. XCIV, 4). Sot. IX, 15 (49ᵇ) יוקר יַאֲמִיר the nobility shall be oppressive (Snh. 97ᵃ יְעַוֵּת; Der. Er. Zut. X יעוות; Cant. R. to II, 13 הווה).—*[ e.g. Psalms 94:4
- 2. (denom. of מריא to fatten. Sabb. XXIV, 3 (155ᵇ) Bab. מַאֲמִירִין, Ms. Oxf., Mish. a. Y. מַמְרִים, מַמְרִין, v. מרי.]

אֵמֶר

, v. אֵימַר a. אִמְרָה.

אִמַּר

lamb, v. אִימַּר.

מְרַר

same, to be bitter; to grieve, mourn. Perf. מַר, imperf. יֵימַר, יֵמַר. Targ. Is. XXIV, 9. Targ. I Sam. XXX, 6; a. fr.—Targ. Zech. XII, 10 ויֵימְרוּן, v. infra.
- to embitter, aggrieve. Targ. Ruth I, 13 תְמָרְרוּן (ed. Amst. תִמְרְ׳). Targ. Y. I Deut. XXXII, 32 מְמַרְרִין (some ed. מְמַרְרַן; Y. II מַרְרַן).
- 1. same. Targ. Ruth I, 20 (not same. Targ. Ruth I, 20 (not אֲמַרִ׳). Targ. Ex. I, 14; a. e.
- 2. to arrange mourning. Targ. Zech. XII, 10 ויימרון … כמא דמַמְרִין וכ׳ they shall arrange mourning for him, as is arranged for &c. (v. infra).—[אָמְרָרוּ, v. Ithpa.]
- to aggrieve. Targ. Prov. XVII, 25. Targ. Y. I Gen. XLIX, 23 ממרירו, read: מַרְמִירוּ; (Y. II אֲמָרוּ, read: אַמָּ׳ Af.).
- 1. to be enraged, fight. Targ. O. Gen. l. c. (Var. אָמְרָרוּ, v. Berl. Targ. O. II, p. 18; oth. ed. אַמְרָרוּ Af.).
- 2. to mourn. Targ. Zech. l. c. Var. (v. Lag. Proph. I, p. XLII).

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 44 distinct written forms H560 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
וְ/אָמַ֗ר	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 2:15	7
וְ/אָמַ֣ר	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 2:5	7
וְ/אָמַ֔ר	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 2:8	5
אָמְרִ֣ין	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute	Daniel 6:6	3
אֲמַר	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 2:25	2
אֲמַ֖ר	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 2:46	2
אֲמַ֣ר	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 5:2	2
אֲמַ֣רְנָא	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Plural	Ezra 5:4	2
אֲמַר֙	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 3:13	2
אָֽמְרִין֙	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute	Daniel 3:4	2
וְ/אָ֣מְרִ֔ין	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute	Daniel 2:10	2
וְ/אָמַר֙	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 3:19	2
וַ/אֲמַר	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 7:16	2
אֱמַ֗ר	Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 4:18	1
אֱמַ֣רוּ	Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural	Daniel 2:9	1
אֱמַ֥ר	Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 2:4	1
אֱמַֽר	Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 4:9	1
אֲמַ֗ר	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 6:16	1
אֲמַ֗רוּ	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural	Daniel 4:26	1
אֲמַֽר	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 7:1	1
אֲמַר֒	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 7:23	1
אַמְרֵֽת	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular	Daniel 4:8	1
אָֽמְרִ֔ין	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute	Daniel 6:5	1
אָמַ֗ר	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 4:14	1
אָמַ֤ר	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 4:7	1
וְ/אָמְרִ֑ין	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute	Daniel 2:7	1
וְ/אָמְרִ֖ין	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute	Daniel 3:16	1
וְ/אָמְרִ֣ין	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute	Daniel 6:15	1
וְ/אָמְרִ֥ין	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 6:12	1
וְ/אָמְרִין֙	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute	Daniel 3:24	1
וְ/אָמְרִין֮	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute	Daniel 6:13	1
וְ/אָמַ֑ר	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 2:27	1
וְ/אָמַ֜ר	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 3:24	1
וְ/אָמַר֩	Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute	Daniel 4:23	1
וְ/יֵ֥אמַר	Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 4:35	1
וַ/אֲמֶ֗רֶת	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular	Daniel 5:10	1
וַ/אֲמַ֣ר	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 6:24	1
וַ/אֲמַר֙	Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 2:12	1
יֵאמַ֤ר	Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 3:29	1
יֵאמַ֥ר	Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular	Daniel 2:7	1
לְ/מֵאמַ֣ר	Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct	Daniel 2:9	1
לְ/מֵמַ֑ר	Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct	Ezra 5:11	1
נֵאמַ֥ר	Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Plural	Daniel 2:36	1
תֵּאמְר֣וּן	Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural	Jeremiah 10:11	1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H560, 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

אמר ʼâmar H559 to say

Shares the same root

Derived from this word

אמר ʼimmar H563 lamb

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. 4 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 61 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 65 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.

אֲמַר

Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)

Where this word appears

Grammatical forms 13 distinct

Ezra 5 verses

Jeremiah 1 verse

Daniel 59 verses

About this entry