עֵדוּת
testimony
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.
- 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).
Every verse where H5715 appears in the Book of Exodus — 20 distinct verses. 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
- Exodus 16:34 הָ/עֵדֻ֖ת ptcl def.art + n c fs As Yahweh commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept.
- Exodus 25:16 הָ/עֵדֻ֔ת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall put the testimony which I shall give you into the ark.
- Exodus 25:21 הָ֣/עֵדֻ֔ת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I will give you.
- Exodus 25:22 הָ/עֵדֻ֑ת ptcl def.art + n c fs There I will meet with you, and I will tell you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the testimony, all that I command you for the children of Israel.
- Exodus 26:33 הָ/עֵד֑וּת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall hang up the veil under the clasps, and shall bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil: and the veil shall separate the holy place from the most holy for you.
- Exodus 26:34 הָ/עֵדֻ֑ת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall put the mercy seat on the ark of the testimony in the most holy place.
- Exodus 27:21 הָ/עֵדֻ֗ת ptcl def.art + n c fs In the tent of meeting, outside the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before Yahweh: it shall be a statute forever throughout their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.
- Exodus 30:6 הָ/עֵדֻ֑ת הָ֣/עֵדֻ֔ת ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall put it before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with you.
- Exodus 30:26 הָ/עֵדֻֽת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall use it to anoint the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony,
- Exodus 30:36 הָ/עֵדֻת֙ ptcl def.art + n c fs and you shall beat some of it very small, and put some of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting, where I will meet with you. It shall be to you most holy.
- Exodus 31:7 לָֽ/עֵדֻ֔ת prep det + n c fs the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony, the mercy seat that is on it, all the furniture of the Tent,
- Exodus 31:18 הָ/עֵדֻ֑ת ptcl def.art + n c fs He gave to Moses, when he finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, stone tablets, written with God's finger.
- Exodus 32:15 הָ/עֵדֻ֖ת ptcl def.art + n c fs Moses turned, and went down from the mountain, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand; tablets that were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other they were written.
- Exodus 34:29 הָֽ/עֵדֻת֙ ptcl def.art + n c fs It happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses didn't know that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.
- Exodus 38:21 הָ/עֵדֻ֔ת ptcl def.art + n c fs This is the amount of material used for the tent, even the Tent of the Testimony, as they were counted, according to the commandment of Moses, for the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.
- Exodus 39:35 הָ/עֵדֻ֖ת ptcl def.art + n c fs the ark of the testimony with its poles, the mercy seat,
- Exodus 40:3 הָ/עֵד֑וּת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall put the ark of the testimony in it, and you shall screen the ark with the veil.
- Exodus 40:5 הָ/עֵדֻ֑ת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall set the golden altar for incense before the ark of the testimony, and put the screen of the door to the tent.
- Exodus 40:20 הָ/עֵדֻת֙ ptcl def.art + n c fs He took and put the testimony into the ark, and set the poles on the ark, and put the mercy seat above on the ark.
- Exodus 40:21 הָ/עֵד֑וּת ptcl def.art + n c fs He brought the ark into the tent, and set up the veil of the screen, and screened the ark of the testimony, as Yahweh commanded Moses.
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.
“testimony” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun עדות (ʻêdûwth). First canonically at Exodus 16:34, it enters the text early. With 57 verses in 11 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Exodus, which alone accounts for 35% of its uses. It clusters with עד, עדה and עדה under a shared root. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5715 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 →
- 57
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 57 distinct verses.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #647
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 647 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 57 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 57 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 33 verses · 58%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 18 verses · 32%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 6 verses · 11%
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: Testimony 35×, Testimonies 14×, Witness 4×
- American Standard Version: Testimony 37×, Testimonies 14×, Him 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Testimony 42×, Testimonies 9×, Decrees 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Testimony 40×, Testimonies 12×, Testimony of 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5715 across 59 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H5715 across 59 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 H5715 across 61 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 H5715 across 60 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 2 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.
- 1. testimony of the Ten Words on the tablets as a solemn divine charge, לֻחֹת הע׳ Ex 31:18; 32:15; 34:29 (P), הע׳ 25:16, 21; 40:20 (P); ark as containing tables, אֲרוֹן הע׳ 25:22; 26:33, 34; 30:6, 26; 39:35; 40:3, 5, 21 Nu 4:5; 7:89 (all P), Jos 4:16 (JE; Kue הברית [ag. him Di], so Benn Steuernag), הארן לע׳ Ex 31:7 (P); abbrev. לִפְנֵי הע׳ 16:34; 30:36 Nu 17:19, 25 (P); עַל הע׳ Ex 27:21 (= הע׳ Lv 24:3), 30:6 Lv 16:13 (P); tabernacle as containing ark of testimony, משׁכן הע׳ tabernacle of the testimony Ex 38:21 Nu 1:50, 53(×2); 10:11 (P); so אֹהֶל הע׳ 9:15; 17:22, 23; 18:2 (P) 2 Ch 24:6. e.g. Exodus 31:18
- 2. the code of law in gen. (late), as a testimony of God: ψ 19:8 119:88; 122:4; ‖ תּוֹרָה 78:5; ‖ חֹק 81:6. In titles, עַל־ שׁוּשַׁן ע׳ ψ 60:1, אֶל־שֹׁשַׁנּ֑ים ע׳ 80:1 = melody whose first line cp. law as testimony to a choice flower. Special laws of the code are denoted by pl.; + חֻקּוֹת etc. 1 K 2:3 2 K 23:3 = 2 Ch 34:31 (+ חקים etc.), Je 44:23; חֻקִּים etc. 1 Ch 29:19; מִצְוֹת Ne 9:34; pl. of contents of covenant 2 K 17:15; pl. elsewhere ψ 119:14, 31, 36, 99, 111, 129, 144, 157. Vid. also iii. [עֵדָה].—For הָעֵדוּת 2 K 11:12 = 2 Ch 23:11 read prob. הַצְּעָדוֹת (cf. 2 S 1:10 We al.). e.g. Psalms 19:8
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
and עֵדֻת27 n.f. testimony;—ע׳ abs. Ex 16:34 +, cstr. ψ 19:8 +; pl. sf. עֵדְוֹתֶיךָ 119:14 +, עֵדְוֹתָיו Je 44:23 + 4 times;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from עד (ʻêd) (H5707) — witness.
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.
*עֵדָה II
- = עֵדוּת, testimony. Tosef. Bekh. III, 8 שכר עֵדָתוֹ ed. Zuck. (oth. ed. עדותו) pay for his testimony.—Pl. עֵדוֹת. Bekh. IV, 6 (29ᵃ) עֵדוֹתָיו בטילין masc. (Var. in Mish. ed. עדותו בטילה) his testimonies are void; (Kidd. 58ᵇ עדותו בטילה).
עֵדוּת
- v. עֵד) testimony, evidence. Ber. 14ᵇ כאילו מעיד ע׳ וכ׳ as if offering evidence of falsehood against himself. Succ. 29ᵃ מעידי ע׳ שקר those who give false witness. Sabb. 22ᵇ (ref. to Lev. XXIV, 3) ע׳ היא לבאי עולם וכ׳ it (the light in the Temple) is an evidence to mankind that the Divine Presence dwells in Israel; Men. 86ᵇ. Ib. מאי עֵדוּתָהּ how did it give evidence (of the Divine Presence)?; Sabb. l. c. מאי עדות (corr. acc., as Ms. M.). Macc. 5ᵃ גופה של ע׳ (not עדיות) the testimony to the fact itself, v. סָרָה. Ib. I, 7 אם מתקיימת הע׳ בשנים וכ׳ if an evidence is legally established by two witnesses, why does the Scripture mention three? Ib. 8 מה שנים … עֵדוּתָן בטלה וכ׳ as in the case of two witnesses, if one of them is found out to be a relative or a disqualified witness, their testimony is void, so in the case of three &c.—Ex. R. s. 41 מה כלה … כל מי שיודע לי ע׳ וכ׳ as the bride … on entering her chamber (in procession) uncovers her face, as if saying, whoever knows any evidence against me, let him come …, so must the scholar &c.; Yalk. ib. 391; Cant. R. to IV, 11 וזו עֵדוּתִי מעידה עלי and this (procession) is my testimonial testifying for me; a. v. fr.—Trnsf. (v. סַהֲדוּ) tokens of virginity. Gen. R. s. 60 ממקום עֵדוּתָן Ar. (ed. ערותן) at the seat of virginity. Gen. R. s. 45; s. 51 הוציאו עדותן Ar. (ed.; Yalk. ib. 79 ערותן).—Pl. עֵדָיוֹת. Macc. I, 9 הרי אלו שתי ע׳ these are two testimonies (two independent sets of witnesses); a. fr.—‘Eduyoth, name of a treatise, of the Order of N’ziḳin, of the Mishnah and Tosefta, containing statements of traditional deliveries and rules. Ber. 28ᵃ ע׳ בו ביום נשנית on that day ‘Eduyoth was taught. e.g. Leviticus 24:3
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 34 distinct written forms H5715 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 H5715, 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 45 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 57 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 16:34
- Leviticus 16:13
- Numbers 1:50
- Joshua 4:16
- 1 Kings 2:3
- 2 Kings 11:12
- 1 Chronicles 29:19
- 2 Chronicles 23:11
- Psalms 19:7
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.
