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אֲנַ֫חְנוּ

we

H587 Strong's Hebrew
ʼănachnûw Transliteration
/an-akh'-noo/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 120 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

אנחנו (ʼănachnûw) is a Hebrew word most often rendered “we.” Debuting at Genesis 13:8, it then recurs through the corpus. With 114 verses in 23 books, it is a common word in the Hebrew Bible. From the same root come אנכי, אנו and אנחנא. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
ourselves
Modern gloss
we
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H587 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 →

114
distinct verses
The word appears in 114 distinct verses.
23 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 23 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 13:8
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 13:8.
Malachi 3:15
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Malachi 3:15.
#360
by frequency
Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 360 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 114 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 27 · 24%
  • Historical 57 · 50%
  • Wisdom 9 · 8%
  • Prophets 21 · 18%

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 114 distinct verses.

  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 48 verses · 42%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 39 verses · 34%
  • Torah (Pentateuch) 27 verses · 24%

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: We 2×
  • American Standard Version: Us 2×
  • Berean Standard Bible: We 86×, Us 6×, We are 6×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: We 89×, Ourselves 14×, Are 8×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H587 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “We” 2×

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 H587 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Us” 2×

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 H587 across 112 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “We” 86×
  • “Us” 6×
  • “We are” 6×
  • “Can we” 3×
  • “We will” 3×

Plus 8 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 7 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H587 across 131 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “We” 89×
  • “Ourselves” 14×
  • “Are” 8×
  • “Us” 8×
  • “And” 5×
  • “We are” 2×

Plus 5 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.

אנחנו I on. 1 pl. we v. infr.

אנחנו II on. 1 pl. comm. we (the pl. corresp. to אָנֹכִי, as אֲנוּ to אֲנִי

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. pron. 1 pl. we v. infr.

I. pron. 1 pl. comm. we (the pl. corresp. to אָנֹכִי, as אֲנוּ to אֲנִי; v. WSG p. 100; Ph. אנחן, Aramaic אֲנַחְנָא, 𝔗 also נַחְנָא, Syriac ܐܶܢܚܢܰܢ, ܐܶܢܰܚܢܰܢ, ܚܢܰܢ, Arabic نَحْنُ, Ethiopic ንሕነ ) Gn 13:8; 29:4; 37:7; 42:11, 13; Nu 9:7; Dt 1:28, 41; Jo 2:17, 18, etc. Like אֲנִי, following a ptcp. as its subj. Gn 19:13; Nu 10:29; Ju 19:18 2 K 18:26; appended to a vb. for emph. Ju 9:28 2 K 10:4; Is 20:6.

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

Derived from אנכי (ʼânôkîy) (H595) — I.

TWOT: 128


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.

אֲנַחְנָא

  • pl. of אֲנָא, אֲנִי.

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 30 distinct written forms H587 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
אֲנַ֣חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Deuteronomy 1:28 11
אֲנַ֔חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Ezra 9:9 9
אֲנַ֖חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Genesis 43:18 9
אֲנַ֥חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Ezekiel 33:10 9
אֲנָֽחְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Genesis 13:8 9
וַ/אֲנַ֣חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Exodus 10:26 8
אֲנַ֤חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Deuteronomy 1:41 7
אֲנַ֨חְנוּ֙ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Ezra 9:7 6
אֲנָ֑חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Genesis 42:31 5
וַ/אֲנַ֗חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural 2 Chronicles 20:12 5
אֲנַ֛חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Genesis 42:13 4
אֲנַ֜חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Genesis 37:7 4
וַ/אֲנַ֖חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Ezekiel 11:3 4
וַ/אֲנַ֥חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Nehemiah 2:20 4
אֲנַ֗חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Deuteronomy 5:25 3
אֲנַ֨חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Daniel 9:18 3
וַ/אֲנַ֤חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Psalms 79:13 3
וַ/אֲנַ֨חְנוּ֙ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Judges 16:5 3
אֲנַ֕חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Genesis 44:9 2
אֲנַ֧חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Deuteronomy 12:8 2
אֲ֭נַחְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Job 8:9 1
אֲנַ֑חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Psalms 100:3 1
אֲנַ֡חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural 1 Samuel 30:14 1
אֲנַחְנוּ֩ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Ezra 9:7 1
אֲנַחְנוּ֮ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Genesis 42:21 1
אנחנו Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Lamentations 5:7 1
וַ/אֲנַ֓חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Psalms 20:7 1
וַ/אֲנַ֛חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural 2 Chronicles 13:10 1
וַ/אֲנַ֜חְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural Numbers 32:17 1
וַ֠/אֲנַחְנוּ Pronoun, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Plural 2 Chronicles 2:16 1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H587, 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

Derived from this word

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 6 — not the complete family. 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 97 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 114 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.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

Comparing translations? Open the Compare panel on any verse page to stack up to four side by side.