עָבוּר
because of
also: on account of, in order to fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
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).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 44 times (90%)
- Preposition 4 times (8%)
- Conjunction 1 time (2%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 49 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5668 appears — 47 distinct verses across 11 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 15 verses
- Genesis 3:17 בַּֽ/עֲבוּרֶ֔/ךָ prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms To Adam he said, "Because you have listened to your wife's voice, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
- Genesis 8:21 בַּ/עֲב֣וּר prep + n c ms cs Yahweh smelled the sweet savor. Yahweh said in his heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, because the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again strike everything living, as I have done.
- Genesis 12:13 בַ/עֲבוּרֵ֔/ךְ prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 2fs Please say that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that my soul may live because of you."
- Genesis 12:16 בַּ/עֲבוּרָ֑/הּ prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3fs He dealt well with Abram for her sake. He had sheep, and oxen, and male donkeys, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and female donkeys, and camels.
- Genesis 18:26 בַּ/עֲבוּרָֽ/ם prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp Yahweh said, "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sake."
- Genesis 18:29 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs He spoke to him yet again, and said, "What if there are forty found there?" He said, "I will not do it for the forty's sake."
- Genesis 18:31 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs He said, "See now, I have taken it on myself to speak to the Lord. What if there are twenty found there?" He said, "I will not destroy it for the twenty's sake."
- Genesis 18:32 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs He said, "Oh don't let the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once. What if ten are found there?" He said, "I will not destroy it for the ten's sake."
- Genesis 21:30 בַּ/עֲבוּר֙ prep + n c ms cs He said, "You shall take these seven ewe lambs from my hand, that it may be a witness to me, that I have dug this well."
- Genesis 26:24 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs Yahweh appeared to him the same night, and said, "I am the God of Abraham your father. Don't be afraid, for I am with you, and will bless you, and multiply your seed for my servant Abraham's sake."
- Genesis 27:4 בַּ/עֲב֛וּר prep + n c ms cs Make me savory food, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat, and that my soul may bless you before I die."
- Genesis 27:10 בַּ/עֲבֻ֛ר prep + n c ms cs You shall bring it to your father, that he may eat, so that he may bless you before his death."
- Genesis 27:19 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done what you asked me to do. Please arise, sit and eat of my venison, that your soul may bless me."
- Genesis 27:31 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs He also made savory food, and brought it to his father. He said to his father, "Let my father arise, and eat of his son's venison, that your soul may bless me."
- Genesis 46:34 בַּ/עֲב֗וּר prep + n c ms cs that you shall say, 'Your servants have been keepers of cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and our fathers:' that you may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians."
Exodus 5 verses
- Exodus 9:14 בַּ/עֲב֣וּר prep + n c ms cs For this time I will send all my plagues against your heart, against your officials, and against your people; that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.
- Exodus 9:16 בַּ/עֲב֥וּר בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs prep + n c ms cs but indeed for this cause I have made you stand: to show you my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth;
- Exodus 13:8 בַּ/עֲב֣וּר prep + n c ms cs You shall tell your son in that day, saying, 'It is because of that which Yahweh did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.'
- Exodus 19:9 בַּ/עֲב֞וּר prep + n c ms cs Yahweh said to Moses, "Behold, I come to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever." Moses told the words of the people to Yahweh.
- Exodus 20:20 לְ/בַֽ/עֲבוּר֙ וּ/בַ/עֲב֗וּר prep + prep + Preposition conj + prep + Preposition Moses said to the people, "Don't be afraid, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, that you won't sin."
1 Samuel 3 verses
- 1 Samuel 1:6 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs Her rival provoked her sore, to make her fret, because Yahweh had shut up her womb.
- 1 Samuel 12:22 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs For Yahweh will not forsake his people for his great name's sake, because it has pleased Yahweh to make you a people to himself.
- 1 Samuel 23:10 בַּ/עֲבוּרִֽ/י prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cs Then said David, O Yahweh, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city for my sake.
2 Samuel 12 verses
- 2 Samuel 5:12 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs David perceived that Yahweh had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel's sake.
- 2 Samuel 6:12 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs It was told king David, saying, Yahweh has blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertains to him, because of the ark of God. David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with joy.
- 2 Samuel 7:21 בַּ/עֲב֤וּר prep + n c ms cs For your word's sake, and according to your own heart, have you worked all this greatness, to make your servant know it.
- 2 Samuel 9:1 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs David said, Is there yet any who is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?
- 2 Samuel 9:7 בַּֽ/עֲבוּר֙ prep + n c ms cs David said to him, "Don't be afraid of him; for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father's sake, and will restore you all the land of Saul your father; and you shall eat bread at my table continually."
- 2 Samuel 10:3 בַּ/עֲב֞וּר prep + n c ms cs But the princes of the children of Ammon said to Hanun their lord, Do you think that David honors your father, in that he has sent comforters to you? Hasn't David sent his servants to you to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?
- 2 Samuel 12:21 בַּ/עֲב֞וּר prep + n c ms cs Then said his servants to him, What thing is this that you have done? you did fast and weep for the child, while it was alive; but when the child was dead, you did rise and eat bread.
- 2 Samuel 12:25 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs and he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet; and he named him Jedidiah, for Yahweh's sake.
- 2 Samuel 13:2 בַּֽ/עֲבוּר֙ prep + n c ms cs Amnon was so vexed that he fell sick because of his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything to her.
- 2 Samuel 14:20 לְ/בַ/עֲב֤וּר prep + prep + Preposition to change the face of the matter has your servant Joab done this thing: and my lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth.
- 2 Samuel 17:14 לְ/בַ/עֲב֗וּר prep + prep + conj Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For Yahweh had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that Yahweh might bring evil on Absalom.
- 2 Samuel 18:18 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar, which is in the king's dale; for he said, I have no son to keep my name in memory: and he called the pillar after his own name; and it is called Absalom's monument, to this day.
1 Chronicles 3 verses
- 1 Chronicles 14:2 בַּ/עֲב֖וּר prep + n c ms cs David perceived that Yahweh had established him king over Israel; for his kingdom was exalted on high, for his people Israel's sake.
- 1 Chronicles 17:19 בַּ/עֲב֤וּר prep + n c ms cs Yahweh, for your servant's sake, and according to your own heart, have you worked all this greatness, to make known all [these] great things.
- 1 Chronicles 19:3 בַּ֠/עֲבוּר prep + n c ms cs But the princes of the children of Ammon said to Hanun, Think you that David does honor your father, in that he has sent comforters to you? Aren't his servants come to you to search, and to overthrow, and to spy out the land?
2 Chronicles 1 verse
Job 1 verse
Psalms 3 verses
- Psalms 105:45 בַּ/עֲב֤וּר prep + n c ms cs That they might keep his statutes, And observe his laws. Praise Yah!
- Psalms 106:32 בַּ/עֲבוּרָֽ/ם prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3mp They angered him also at the waters of Meribah, So that Moses was troubled for their sakes;
- Psalms 132:10 בַּ֭/עֲבוּר prep + n c ms cs For your servant David's sake, Don't turn away the face of your anointed one.
Jeremiah 1 verse
Amos 2 verses
- Amos 2:6 בַּ/עֲב֥וּר prep + n c ms cs Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Israel, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because they have sold the righteous for silver, And the needy for a pair of shoes;
- Amos 8:6 בַּ/עֲב֣וּר prep + n c ms cs That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of shoes, And sell the sweepings with the wheat?'"
Micah 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.
The Hebrew word עבור centers on the idea of “because of.” Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 3:17. It appears 47 verses across 11 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its moderately common vocabulary. The word gravitates to Genesis (32%), then 2 Samuel and Exodus. Lexicons map it across 2 senses — beyond “because of” it also covers “on account of” and “in order to”. Dig into 47-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5668 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 →
- 47
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 47 distinct verses.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #752
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 752 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 47 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 47 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 20 verses · 43%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 19 verses · 40%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 17%
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: To 2×
- American Standard Version: To 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Sake 9×, That 8×, Account 6×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Sake of 14×, That 9×, Of 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5668 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 H5668 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5668 across 43 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 4 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5668 across 51 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 2 senses 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.
- for the sake of, on account of, because of, in order to (preposition)
- in order that (conjunction)
Word origin
[ עָבוּר ] n. only in בַּעֲבוּר 47, בַּעֲבֻר, prep. and conj. for the sake of, on account of, in order that
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from עבר (ʻâbar) (H5674) — to pass over.
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.
עִבּוּר
- , v. sub עיבּ׳.
עֲבוּר
- , בַּעֲ׳ for the sake of. Taan. 20ᵃ נקררה חמה בַּעֲבוּרוֹ the sun was made to break forth for his sake. Ib. בַּעֲבוּרָן for their sake; a. fr.—[Pesik. Haḥod., p. 45ᵃ sq. הרגיש בעבורה, read. בעֲבֵירָה.]
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 22 distinct written forms H5668 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| בַּ/עֲב֖וּר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 9:16 | 16 |
| בַּ/עֲב֣וּר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Amos 8:6 | 4 |
| בַּ/עֲב֤וּר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | 1 Chronicles 17:19 | 4 |
| בַּ/עֲב֞וּר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 19:9 | 3 |
| בַּ/עֲב֥וּר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Amos 2:6 | 3 |
| בַּ/עֲבוּרָֽ/ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 18:26 | 2 |
| בַּֽ/עֲבוּר֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | 2 Samuel 9:7 | 2 |
| בַ/עֲבוּרֵ֔/ךְ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 12:13 | 1 |
| בַּ/עֲב֗וּר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 46:34 | 1 |
| בַּ/עֲב֛וּר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 27:4 | 1 |
| בַּ/עֲבֻ֛ר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 27:10 | 1 |
| בַּ/עֲבוּר֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 21:30 | 1 |
| בַּ/עֲבוּרִֽ/י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | 1 Samuel 23:10 | 1 |
| בַּ/עֲבוּרָ֑/הּ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 12:16 | 1 |
| בַּ֠/עֲבוּר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | 1 Chronicles 19:3 | 1 |
| בַּ֭/עֲבוּר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Psalms 132:10 | 1 |
| בַּֽ/עֲבוּרֶ֔/ךָ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 3:17 | 1 |
| וּ/בַ/עֲב֗וּר | Preposition | Exodus 20:20 | 1 |
| וּ֝/בַ/עֲב֗וּר | Preposition | Job 20:2 | 1 |
| לְ/בַ/עֲב֗וּר | Conjunction | 2 Samuel 17:14 | 1 |
| לְ/בַ/עֲב֤וּר | Preposition | 2 Samuel 14:20 | 1 |
| לְ/בַֽ/עֲבוּר֙ | Preposition | Exodus 20:20 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5668, 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
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 6 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 46 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 47 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
- Genesis 3:17
- Exodus 9:14
- 1 Samuel 1:6
- 2 Samuel 5:12
- 1 Chronicles 14:2
- 2 Chronicles 28:19
- Job 20:2
- Psalms 105:45
- Jeremiah 14:4
- Amos 2:6
- Micah 2:10
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.
