עָמַל
to labor
‘to labor’ 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
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H5998 appears in the Book of Ecclesiastes — 8 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.
Ecclesiastes
- Ecclesiastes 1:3 שֶֽׁ/יַּעֲמֹ֖ל ptcl rel + Qal impf 3ms What does man gain from all his labor in which he labors under the sun?
- Ecclesiastes 2:11 שֶׁ/עָמַ֣לְתִּי ptcl rel + Qal pf 1cs Then I looked at all the works that my hands had worked, and at the labor that I had labored to do; and, behold, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 2:19 שֶֽׁ/עָמַ֥לְתִּי ptcl rel + Qal pf 1cs Who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have rule over all of my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.
- Ecclesiastes 2:20 שֶׁ/עָמַ֖לְתִּי ptcl rel + Qal pf 1cs Therefore I began to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labor in which I had labored under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 2:21 עָֽמַל Qal pf 3ms For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, with knowledge, and with skillfulness; yet he shall leave it for his portion to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.
- Ecclesiastes 5:16 שֶֽׁ/יַּעֲמֹ֖ל ptcl rel + Qal impf 3ms This also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go. And what profit does he have who labors for the wind?
- Ecclesiastes 5:18 שֶׁ/יַּעֲמֹ֣ל ptcl rel + Qal impf 3ms Behold, that which I have seen to be good and proper is for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor, in which he labors under the sun, all the days of his life which God has given him; for this is his portion.
- Ecclesiastes 8:17 יַעֲמֹ֧ל Qal impf 3ms then I saw all the work of God, that man can't find out the work that is done under the sun, because however much a man labors to seek it out, yet he won't find it. Yes even though a wise man thinks he can comprehend it, he won't be able to find it.
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.
עמל — transliterated ʻâmal — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to labor.” Its uses cluster heavily in Ecclesiastes (73% of all occurrences). With 11 verses in 4 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Psalms 127:1. It is not a single-sense word — see its full sense range. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5998 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 →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,210
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,210 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ecclesiastes 8 verses 73%
- Psalms 1 verse 9%
- Proverbs 1 verse 9%
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 11 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 10 verses · 91%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 9%
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 3 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†: He taketh 2×
- American Standard Version†: Wherein he laboreth 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: He toils 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: I toiled 3×, Toils 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5998 across 11† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 H5998 across 7† 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 H5998 across 11† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 H5998 across 13† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 4 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.
עמל I labour, toil (NH id.
Qal
- Pf. 3 ms. ע׳ Ec 2:21; 3 fs. עָֽמְלָה Pr 16:26; 2 ms. עָמַלְתָּ Jon 4:10; 1 s. עָמַלְתִּי Ec 2:11 + 2 times; pl. עָֽמְלוּ ψ 127:1; Impf. 3 ms. יַעֲמֹל Ec 1:3 + 3 times;—labour (very late): in building, c. בְּ ψ 127:1; tillage, c. בְּ Jon 4:10; gen., c. בְּ Ec 2:21, c. לְ Pr 16:26; Ec 5:15, c. לְ + inf. 8:17; עֲמָלוֹ שֶׁיַּעֲמֹל 1:3; 5:17, cf. 2:11, 19, 20. e.g. Ecclesiastes 2:21
עמל II
- 1. trouble (‖ sorrow): one’s own suffering, עָמָל וְיָגוֹן Je 20:18; ע׳ וָכַעַם ψ 10:14; עֳנִי וע׳ Dt 26:7 ψ 25:18; ע׳ וָאָ֑וֶן 90:10; ‖ אָוֶן Nu 23:21; Jb 5:6; ‖ שָֽׁוְא Jb 7:3; ע׳ נפשׁו Is 53:11; ע׳ בְּעֵינָ֑י ψ 73:16; וַיַּסְתֵּר ע׳ מֵעֵינָ֑י Jb 3:10; מְנַחֲמֵי ע׳ 16:2; אדם לע׳ יוּלָּד 5:7; בע׳ אנושׁ אינימוֹ ψ 73:5; שׁכח ע׳ Jb 11:16; נַשַּׁנִי ע׳ Gn 41:51 (E); ע׳ לא זכר Pr 31:7; תקצר נפשׁו בע׳ Ju 10:16. e.g. Jeremiah 20:18
- 2. trouble, mischief, as done to others: ‖ שֹׁד Pr 24:2; יֹצֵר ע׳ ψ 94:20; ‖ רָע Hb 1:13; יָשׁוּב ע׳ בְרֹאשׁוֹ ψ 7:17; ע׳ וָאָ֑וֶן 10:7; און וע׳ 55:11; ‖ אָוֶן Is 10:1; 59:4; Hb 1:3 ψ 7:15; Jb 4:8; 15:35; עֲמַל שְׂפָתֵימוֹ ψ 140:10 mischief of their lips. e.g. Proverbs 24:2
- 3. toil, labour (late in Heb.): Ec 2:10(×2), 21, 24; 3:13; 4:4, 6, 8, 9; 5:14, 18; 6:7; 8:15; 10:15; c. עָמַל (q.v.) 1:3; 2:11, 19, 20; 5:17; עָמֵל (שְׁהוּא) ע׳ שֶׁאֲנִי 2:18, 22; ע׳ אֲשֶׁר עָמֵל 9:9; = fruit of labour, ע׳ לְאֻמִּים יִירָ֑שׁוּ ψ 105:44; וַיַּכְנַע בע׳ לִבָּם 107:12 he humbled their mind by toil. e.g. Ecclesiastes 2:10
עמל III m. name in Asher 1 Ch 7
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. vb. labour, toil (NH id.; Arabic عَمِلَ labour, make; Sab. עמל work (? n. or vb.) CIS iv. No. 250; Aramaic עֲמַל, ܥܡܰܠ; Zinj. עמל; Assyrian nîmelu, gain, possessions);—
I. n.m. Jb 4:8 f. Ec 10:15 (against AlbrZAW xvi (1896), 113, v. KöSynt. § 249 m) trouble, labour, toil (on this form as abstr. v. LagBN 143 BaNB 105);—ע׳ Nu 23:21 +; cstr. עֲמַל Ju 10:16 +; sf. עֲמָלִי Gn 41:51 +, etc.;—
II. n.pr.m. name in Asher 1 Ch 7:35, 𝔊 Αμαα, 𝔊L Αλαμ.
— 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.
עָמֵל I
- (b. h.) to labor, take pains; to be wearied. Deut. R. s. 11 זו היא שילום … שעָמַלְתִּי וכ׳ is this the payment for the service of forty years during which I worked hard, until they became a holy and faithful people? Yalk. Prov. 950 מדבר בעוֹמְלֵי תורה it refers to those studying the Law industriously; Tanḥ. ed. Bub., Mick. 2 בעֲמֵלֵי; a. fr.—Part. or adj. עָמֵל; f. עֲמֵלָה; pl. עֲמֵלִים, עֲמֵלִין; עֲמֵלוֹת. Cant. R. to I, 2 מה המים … כל מי שהוא ע׳ בהן וכ׳ as water raises plants, so the words of the Law raise him who works at (studies) them sufficiently. Deut. R. l. c. ולא אמר בעֲמֵלֶיהָ … בעושיה and he (Moses) did not say (in his blessing, blessed be who delights) in those laboring to study it, or in those who meditate on it, but in those who do it. Ber. 28ᵇ אני ע׳ והם ע׳ I wear myself out (in study), and they wear themselves out (in vanities). Ab. II, 2 כל הע׳ עם הצבור יהיו ע׳ וכ׳ (Var. העוסקים … עוסקים) all those who are engaged in public affairs must do their work for the sake of heaven (disinterestedly); a. fr.
- to work through, knead, esp. to stimulate and heat the body (v. Hithpa.). Sabb. 147ᵇ מפני שמְעַמֶּלֶת ומרפא (read with Alf.: ומרפאת, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 10) because it (the mud of Dimsith) exercises the body and loosens (the bowels).
- 1. to be kneaded, have massage. Ib. XXII, 6 סכין … אבל לא מִתְעַמְּלִים וכ׳ you may have yourself ointed and rubbed on the Sabbath, but not kneaded or scraped.
- 2. to wear one’s self out, esp. to exercise (and heat) the body. Tosef. Peah IV, 10 Hillel bought for a poor man of good breeding סוס שהיה מִתְעַמֵּל בו a horse on which to take exercise; Y. ib. VIII, 21ᵃ bot. להִתְעַמֵּל בו; (Keth. 67ᵇ לרכיב עליו). Tosef. Sabb. XVI (XVII), 22 אין רצין בשבת כדי להִתְעַמֵּל וכ׳ you must not run on the Sabbath for the sake of exercise, but you may walk in an ordinary way the entire day.
עֲמַל I
- Targ. Jon. IV, 13.
עָמֵל II
- m., v. עָמֵל I
עָמָל
- preced. wds.) toil, trouble; fruit of labor, achievement. Midr. Till. to Ps. XC, 10 אפי׳ מלכותו ע׳ ואוו even man’s rulership is toil and vanity; Yalk. ib. 841. Ber. 17ᵃ אשרי מי … ועֲמָלוֹ בתורה blessed he that has been reared in the Law, and whose toil is in the Law. Gen. R. s. 31 שהיתה … בעמלו של רשע a curse rested on the wicked man’s labor. Ex. R. s. 22 שלא היה בעמלו גזל in whose acquired property there was no robbery; a. fr.—Gen. R. s. 39 בית הע׳, v. דָּהוֹן.
עֲמַל II
- Targ. Gen. III, 17 (h. text עצבין). Targ. O. Deut. XXVI, 7. Targ. Ps. VII, 17 Ms. (ed. לעותא); a. e.—Esp. acquisition, income, rent. B. Bath. 67ᵃ מגבינן אפי׳ מע׳ דבתי we used to collect (the daughter’s share, v. עִישּׂוּר) even from house rents; Keth. 69ᵃ (not דביתי; Rashi: דבֵיתֵיה).—Pl. עַמְלִין. B. Mets. 15ᵃ אינון ועַמְלֵיהוֹן וכ׳ Rashi a. Tosaf. (ed. ועמיליהון) (I vouch for) themselves (the lands), and the income from them and eventual improvements; [Ar. a. Tosaf. עמליהון the cost of acquisition, original value].
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 10 distinct written forms H5998 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| שֶֽׁ/יַּעֲמֹ֖ל | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ecclesiastes 1:3 | 2 |
| יַעֲמֹ֧ל | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ecclesiastes 8:17 | 1 |
| עָ֣מְלָה | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Proverbs 16:26 | 1 |
| עָֽמַל | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ecclesiastes 2:21 | 1 |
| עָמְל֣וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Psalms 127:1 | 1 |
| עָמַ֥לְתָּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Jonah 4:10 | 1 |
| שֶׁ/יַּעֲמֹ֣ל | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ecclesiastes 5:18 | 1 |
| שֶׁ/עָמַ֖לְתִּי | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Ecclesiastes 2:20 | 1 |
| שֶׁ/עָמַ֣לְתִּי | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Ecclesiastes 2:11 | 1 |
| שֶֽׁ/עָמַ֥לְתִּי | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Ecclesiastes 2:19 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5998, 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 11 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 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.
