עָלַץ
to exult
‘to exult’ is one of 2 main senses 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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
Form
- Cohortative
- A first-person volitional form expressing wish or resolve (“let me / let us write”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
Person
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (25%)
- Verb, Qal, Cohortative, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Jussive, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (13%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 8 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5970 appears — 8 distinct verses across 4 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
1 Chronicles 1 verse
Psalms 4 verses
- Psalms 5:11 וְֽ/יַעְלְצ֥וּ conj + Qal impf 3mp But let all those who take refuge in you rejoice, Let them always shout for joy, because you defend them. Let them also who love your name be joyful in you.
- Psalms 9:2 וְ/אֶעֶלְצָ֣ה conj + Qal coh 1cs I will be glad and rejoice in you. I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
- Psalms 25:2 יַֽעַלְצ֖וּ Qal juss 3mp My God, I have trusted in you, Don't let me be shamed. Don't let my enemies triumph over me.
- Psalms 68:3 יַֽ֭עַלְצוּ Qal impf 3mp But let the righteous be glad. Let them rejoice before God. Yes, let them rejoice with gladness.
Proverbs 2 verses
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.
“to exult” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb עלץ (ʻâlats). It clusters heavily in Psalms, which alone accounts for 50% of its uses. It turns up in 8 verses across 4 books, an uncommon footprint. Its earliest occurrence is 1 Samuel 2:1. Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 8-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5970 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 8 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 8 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 7 verses · 88%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 13%
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: Rejoice 2×, Rejoiceth 2×
- American Standard Version: Be joyful in thee 1×, Exult 1×, Exulteth 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Exult 2×, Rejoice 2×, Rejoices 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Exult 4×, Let 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5970 across 8 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 H5970 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5970 across 8 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 H5970 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 1 sense 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.
Qal
- Pf. 3 ms. ע׳ לִבִּ׳ בְּי׳ 1 S 2:1 my heart exulteth in י׳; Impf. 3 ms. יַעֲלֹץ הַשָּׂדֶה 1 Ch 16:32 the field exulteth; cf. 3 fs. תַּעֲלֹץ קִרְיָה Pr 11:10 (‖ רנן); 1 s. אֶעֶלְצָה בָּ֑ךְ ψ 9:3 (i.e. in י׳; + שׂמה, ‖ זמּר); 3 mpl. יַעְלְצוּ בְךָ ψ 5:12 (in י׳; ‖ שׂמח, רנן); יַעַלְצוּ לִפְנֵי אֱלֹהִים 68:4 (+ שׂמח, ‖ שׂישׂ); + לִי 25:2 exult at me; Inf. cstr. בַּעֲלֹץ Pr 28:12 when the righteous exult. e.g. 1 Samuel 2:1
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
vb. rejoice, exult (NH id. (rare); Hiph. Impf. יעליצו Ecclus 4:20; Assyrian elêṣu, exult; Sab. מעלץ joys CIS iv, No. 197, 1. 5. 7; v. also עלז, עלס);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
עָלַץ
- (b. h.) to rejoice. Erub. 53ᵇ
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 8 distinct written forms H5970 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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/עֲלֹ֣ץ | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct | Proverbs 28:12 | 1 |
| וְ/אֶעֶלְצָ֣ה | Verb, Qal, Cohortative, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Psalms 9:2 | 1 |
| וְֽ/יַעְלְצ֥וּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Psalms 5:11 | 1 |
| יַֽ֭עַלְצוּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Psalms 68:3 | 1 |
| יַֽעַלְצ֖וּ | Verb, Qal, Jussive, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Psalms 25:2 | 1 |
| יַעֲלֹ֥ץ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | 1 Chronicles 16:32 | 1 |
| עָלַ֤ץ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | 1 Samuel 2:1 | 1 |
| תַּעֲלֹ֣ץ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Proverbs 11:10 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5970, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
