עֶגְלָה
heifer
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.
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 7 times (50%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 4 times (29%)
- Noun, Proper 2 times (14%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct 1 time (7%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 14 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5697 appears — 13 distinct verses across 7 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
Deuteronomy 3 verses
- Deuteronomy 21:3 עֶגְלַ֣ת n c fs cs and it shall be, that the city which is nearest to the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take a heifer of the herd, which hasn't been worked with, and which has not drawn in the yoke;
- Deuteronomy 21:4 הָֽ/עֶגְלָה֙ הָ/עֶגְלָ֖ה ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs and the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley.
- Deuteronomy 21:6 הָ/עֶגְלָ֖ה ptcl def.art + n c fs All the elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;
Judges 1 verse
1 Samuel 1 verse
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 7:21 עֶגְלַ֥ת n c fs cs It shall happen in that day that a man shall keep alive a young cow, and two sheep;
- Isaiah 15:5 עֶגְלַ֣ת n Proper My heart cries out for Moab; her nobles [flee] to Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah: for by the ascent of Luhith with weeping they go up; for in the way of Horonaim they raise up a cry of destruction.
Jeremiah 3 verses
- Jeremiah 46:20 עֶגְלָ֥ה n c fs Egypt is a very beautiful heifer; [but] destruction out of the north is come, it is come.
- Jeremiah 48:34 עֶגְלַ֖ת n Proper From the cry of Heshbon even to Elealeh, even to Jahaz have they uttered their voice, from Zoar even to Horonaim, to Eglath Shelishiyah: for the waters of Nimrim also shall become desolate.
- Jeremiah 50:11 כְּ/עֶגְלָ֣ה prep + n c fs Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out [the grain], and neigh as strong horses;
Hosea 2 verses
- Hosea 10:5 לְ/עֶגְלוֹת֙ prep + n c fp cs The inhabitants of Samaria will be in terror for the calves of Beth Aven; For its people will mourn over it, Along with its priests who rejoiced over it, For its glory, because it has departed from it.
- Hosea 10:11 עֶגְלָ֤ה n c fs Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh; So I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck. I will set a rider on Ephraim. Judah will plow. Jacob will break his clods.
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.
עגלה — transliterated ʻeglâh — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “heifer.” It first appears in Genesis 15:9. With 13 verses in 7 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. From the same root come עגל, עגלון and עגלה. See the sense tree, 13-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5697 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 →
- 13
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 13 distinct verses.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,910
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,910 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 13 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Deuteronomy 3 verses 23%
- Jeremiah 3 verses 23%
- Isaiah 2 verses 15%
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 13 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 9 verses · 69%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 4 verses · 31%
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 2 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†: Heifer 7×
- American Standard Version†: Heifer 5×, Eglath 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Heifer 7×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Heifer 6×, Heifer of 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5697 across 12† 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5697 across 12† 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 H5697 across 13† 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5697 across 14† 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.
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.
עגלה I heifer
עגלה II f. wife of David (on sense heifer cf. לֵאָה, רָחֵל
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
I. n.f. heifer;—abs. ע׳ Gn 15:9 +; cstr. עֶגְלַת Is 7:21 +; sf. עֶגְלָתִי Ju 14:18; pl. cstr. עֶגְלוֹת Ho 10:5 (but v. infr.);—heifer, Is 7:21, used in ploughing Ju 14:18 (fig.), threshing Je 50:11 (ע׳ דָשָׁא, in sim., v. דּוּשׁ, read perhaps דָשָׁה), fig. of stateliness etc. Je 46:20; ע׳ מְלֻמָּדָה Ho 10:11 a trained heifer (sim. of Ephr.); used for sacrif. 1 S 16:2 (עֶגְלַת בָּקָר); cut in two for ratifying covenant Gn 15:9 (J; ע׳ מְשֻׁלֶּשֶׁת; cf. עֵגֶל Je 34:18, 19); in cleansing city from blood-guiltiness Dt 21:3 (ע׳ בָּקָר), v 4(×2), 6; once of calves worshipped in N. Isr. Ho 10:5 (where read prob. עֵגֶל, so 𝔊 We Now GASm, cf. Che, v. also the foll. sfs. ms.).
II. n.pr.f. wife of David (on sense heifer cf. לֵאָה, רָחֵל; v. also GrayProp. N. 92, No. 27);—2 S 3:5 (𝔊 Αιγαλ, A Αιγας, 𝔊L Αγλα) = 1 Ch 3:3 (𝔊 Αλα, A Αγλα, 𝔊L Εγλα).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from עגל (ʻêgel) (H5695) — calf.
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.
עִגְלָה
- , בְּרֵיכַת ע׳ the Pond of ‘Igla. Targ. Jer. XXXI, 38 (ed. Lag. עיגליא; h. text גֹּעָה).
עֶגְלָה
- heifer, v. עֵגֶל.
עֲגָלָה
- [roller,] wagon. Bets. II, 10 ע׳ של קטן children’s wagon. Sabb. V, 4 בע׳ שתחת וכ׳ with the little wagon under the tail (to protect the latter from friction, v. חֲמַט II); a. e.—Pl. עֲגָלוֹת. Kel. XXIV, 2 שלש ע׳ הן וכ׳ there are three classes of wagons (with regard to levitical cleanness), one shaped like a cathedra; like a couch …, and one for stones (loads). Gen. R. s. 95; a. e.—Esp. עֲגָלָה the constellation called Charles’ Wain (Ursa Major). Pes. 94ᵇ
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 12 distinct written forms H5697 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| עֶגְלַ֣ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Deuteronomy 21:3 | 2 |
| הָ/עֶגְלָ֖ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Deuteronomy 21:4 | 2 |
| בְּ/עֶגְלָתִ֔/י | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Judges 14:18 | 1 |
| הָֽ/עֶגְלָה֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Deuteronomy 21:4 | 1 |
| כְּ/עֶגְלָ֣ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 50:11 | 1 |
| לְ/עֶגְלוֹת֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Hosea 10:5 | 1 |
| עֶגְלַ֖ת | Noun, Proper | Jeremiah 48:34 | 1 |
| עֶגְלַ֤ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | 1 Samuel 16:2 | 1 |
| עֶגְלַ֥ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Isaiah 7:21 | 1 |
| עֶגְלָ֣ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Genesis 15:9 | 1 |
| עֶגְלָ֤ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Hosea 10:11 | 1 |
| עֶגְלָ֥ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 46:20 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5697, 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 11 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 13 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.
