אָבֵל
Abel-beth-maachah
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Abel-beth-maachah’ fuller range ↓
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
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H59 appears — 4 distinct verses across 2 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.
1 Samuel 1 verse
2 Samuel 3 verses
- 2 Samuel 20:14 אָבֵ֛לָ/ה n Proper + sfx dem He went through all the tribes of Israel to Abel, and to Beth Maacah, and all the Berites: and they were gathered together, and went also after him.
- 2 Samuel 20:15 בְּ/אָבֵ֨לָ/ה֙ prep + n Proper + sfx dem They came and besieged him in Abel of Beth Maacah, and they cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart; and all the people who were with Joab battered the wall, to throw it down.
- 2 Samuel 20:18 בְּ/אָבֵ֖ל prep + n Proper Then she spoke, saying, They were wont to speak in old time, saying, They shall surely ask [counsel] at Abel: and so they ended [the matter].
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.
“Abel-beth-maachah” is the headline sense of the Hebrew name אבל (ʼÂbêl). A scarce word — 4 verses in all of the Hebrew Bible. It clusters heavily in 2 Samuel, which alone accounts for 75% of its uses. Scripture first uses it in 1 Samuel 6:18. See 4-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H59 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 →
- 4
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 4 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,696
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,696 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 4 occurrences in the concordance →
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 4 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 100%
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: Abel 2×
- American Standard Version: Abel 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Abel-beth-maacah 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Abel 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H59 across 4 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H59 across 4 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H59 across 4 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 H59 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears 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 6 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. meadow (?) 1 S 6:18 MT but read אֶבֶן cf. v 14, 15 𝔊 𝔖 We Dr. e.g. 1 Samuel 6:18
- 2. n.pr.loc. city in N. Isr. 2 S 20:18, near Beth Maacah v 14 = אָבֵל בֵּית מַעֲכָה v 15 (so also v 14 Ew Th We Klo Dr), 1 K 15:20 2 K 15:29; = א׳ מַיִם 2 Ch 16:4 (= Abil el Ḳamḥ. wheat-meadow NW. of Dan & S. of Mutulleh RobBR III, 372). e.g. 1 Samuel 20:18
- 3. אָבֵל הַשִּׁטִּים n.pr.loc. (= acacia-meadow) in lowlands of Moab Nu 33:49; = שִׁטִּים Nu 25:1 Mi 6:5 (= Tel Kefrein (?) Tristr & MerrillPESoc. 4th Statement, 89). e.g. Numbers 33:49
- 4. אָבֵל כְּרָמִים n.pr.loc. (= vineyard-meadow) in Ammon Ju 11:33 (v. Euseb. Ἀβελαμπελων). e.g. Judges 11:33
- 5. אָבֵל מְחוֹלָה n.pr.loc. (= dance-meadow) Ju 7:22 1 K 4:12; Elisha’s birthplace 19:16 (v. Euseb. Ἀβελμαελαι). e.g. Judges 7:22
- 6. אָבֵל מִצְרַיִם n.pr.loc. (= meadow of Egypt, i.e. fertile as Egypt?) E. of Jordan Gn 50:11 (where interpr. as if אֵבֶל מ׳, so 𝔊 𝔙; v. Di). e.g. Genesis 50:11
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
adj. mourning—א׳ Gn 37:35 Est 6:12; cstr. אֲבֶל־ ψ 35:14; אֲבֵלִים Jb 29:25 Is 61:2 etc.;—for dead Gn 37:35 (cp. 50:11), calamity Est 6:12; fig. La 1:4 (pred., inanim. subj.), elsewhere as subst. mourner; sg. ψ 35:14 (cstr.) for dead (‖ קדר; pl. Jb 29:25 abs.; for calamity Is 57:18; 61:2, 3 (where mourners for Zion, or of Zion, v. Di).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אבל (ʼâbêl) (H58) — meadow (from verb.
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.
אֲבָל
- (b. h.)
- 1. indeed, yes. Tosef. Erub. V (IV), 1 אמרו לו א׳ said they to him, yes (we admit). Erub. 30ᵇ top. Nidd. 3ᵇ; a. e.—Gen. R. s. 91 לשון דרומית וכ׳ it is a South Palestine expression where ăbal means bram, v. בְּרַם.
- 2. but, however. Ber. VII, 1; a. v. fr.
אָבֵל I
- (b. h.) pr. n. pl. Abel, name of several towns; cmp. אֲבֵילִין. Erub. 87ᵃ ed. (Ms. M. בבל, corr. acc., Var. lect. v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note).
אָבֵל II
- , v. אבב; cmp. אפל); [dark, cmp. קֹדֵר], mourner, esp. during seven days after burial. M. Kat. 14ᵇ; a. v. fr.—Pl. אֲבֵלִים, (אֲבֵילִין) אֲבֵילִים. Keth. 8ᵇ; v. בְּרָכָה. Y. Ab. Zar. I, 39ᶜ bot. אֲבֵילֵי גויים mourners among gentiles; a. fr.—Fem. אֲבֵילָה, אֲבֵלָה. Y. Ber. IV, 8ᵃ; Y. Taan. II, 65ᶜ bot.
אָבֵל III
- (foreg.) to mourn. Hithpa. הִתְאַבֵּל, Nithpa. נִתְאַבֵּל to observe mourning ceremonies, to be bound to mourn, be an אָבֵל. M. Kat. 20ᵇ כל שמִתְאַבֵּל עליו מתא׳ עמו over whom one is bound to mourn, with him he must mourn, i.e. one must share in the mourning ceremonies of a relation at whose death he would have to observe mourning; a. fr.—Tanḥ. Sh’mini, 1 נתא׳. Pesik. Sos p. 148ᵇ; a. fr.
אֲבֵל
- Targ. Lam. II, 8.
- (denom. of אֲבֵלָא) to mourn. Targ. Gen. XXXVII, 34; a. fr.—Y. Ab. Zar. I, 39ᶜ top. v. אִימִירָא. Esth. R. beg. כד ילידת הוו מִתְאַבְּלִין when the Empress gave birth, they (the Jews) mourned (it being the Ninth of Ab). B. Kam. 59ᵇ את חשיבא לאִתְאַבּוּלֵי וכ׳ ed. (Ms. R. לאַבּוּלֵי, v. infra) art thou distinguished enough to wear mourning for Jerusalem?
- . Ib. מְאַבֵּילְנָא ed. (Ms. F. מאבלנא, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l., note 6) I wear mourning.
אֵבֶל
- foreg.) mourning; cmp. אֲבֵילוּת. Y. M. Kat. III, 82ᵇ; a. fr.—Pl. אֲבֵילִים. M. Kat. 7ᵇ מי שתכפוהו אֲבֵילָיו he whom his mourning days overtook, i.e. a second case occurring before the mourning days of the first expired.—אֵבֶל רַבָּתִי Ebel Rabbathi (Great Mourning), name of a Talmudic treatise, also named euphemistically שְׂמָחוֹת Rejoicings.—[Chald. Targ. Gen. L, 11; v. אֶבְלָא.]
אֻבָל
- , v. אוּבָל
אוּבָל
- (v. יוּבָל)
- 1. river. Dan. VIII, 2; 3; 6. e.g. Daniel 8:2
- 2. as a pr. n. Ubal (The River). Gen. R. s. 16 (referring to Dan. l. c.) א׳ אוותנטין וכ׳ Ubal is the source of all the other rivers.
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 4 distinct written forms H59 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| אָבֵ֛לָ/ה | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 20:14 | 1 |
| אָבֵ֣ל | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 6:18 | 1 |
| בְּ/אָבֵ֖ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 20:18 | 1 |
| בְּ/אָבֵ֨לָ/ה֙ | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 20:15 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H59, 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.
- אבל ביתמעכה ʼÂbêl Bêyth-Măʻakâh H62 Abel Beth Maachah
- אבל השטים ʼÂbêl hash-Shiṭṭîym H63 Abel Shittim
- אבל כרמים ʼÂbêl Kᵉrâmîym H64 Abel Keramim
- אבל מחולה ʼÂbêl Mᵉchôwlâh H65 Abel Meholah
- אבל מים ʼAbêl Mayim H66 Abel Maim
- אבל מצרים ʼÂbêl Mitsrayim H67 Abel Mizraim
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 8 — not the complete family. 6 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Abel-beth-maachah). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Meadow of the house of Maachah, a city in the north of Palestine, in the neighbourhood of Dan and Ijon, in the tribe of Naphtali. It was a place of considerable strength and importance. It is called a "mother in Israel", i.e., a metropolis (2 Sam. 20:19). It was besieged by Joab (2 Sam. 20:14), by Benhadad (1 Kings 15:20), and by Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 15:29) about B.C. 734. It is elsewhere called Abel-maim, meadow of the waters, (2 Chr. 16:4). Its site is occupied by the modern Abil or Abil-el-kamh, on a rising ground to the east of the brook Derdarah, which flows through the plain of Huleh into the Jordan, about 6 miles to the west-north-west of Dan.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(meadow of the house of oppression), a town of some importance, (2 Samuel 20:15) in the extreme north of Palestine, which fell an early prey to the invading kings of Syria, (1 Kings 15:20) and Assyria. (2 Kings 15:29)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
mourning to the house of Maachah
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 4 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 4 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.
