עֲמָלֵק
Amalek
BDB lists 3 entries for ‘Amalek’ 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 H6002 appears in the Book of Exodus — 7 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 17:8 עֲמָלֵ֑ק n Proper Then Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
- Exodus 17:9 בַּ/עֲמָלֵ֑ק prep + n Proper Moses said to Joshua, "Choose men for us, and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with God's rod in my hand."
- Exodus 17:10 בַּ/עֲמָלֵ֑ק prep + n Proper So Joshua did as Moses had told him, and fought with Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.
- Exodus 17:11 עֲמָלֵֽק n Proper It happened, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
- Exodus 17:13 עֲמָלֵ֥ק n Proper Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
- Exodus 17:14 עֲמָלֵ֔ק n Proper Yahweh said to Moses, "Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under the sky."
- Exodus 17:16 בַּֽ/עֲמָלֵ֑ק prep + n Proper He said, "Yah has sworn: 'Yahweh will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.'"
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.
עמלק — transliterated ʻĂmâlêq — is a Hebrew name carrying the sense “Amalek.” Debuting at Genesis 36:12, it then recurs through the corpus. Spanning 37 verses in 9 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in 1 Samuel (32% of all occurrences). 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 H6002 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 →
- 37
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 37 distinct verses.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #922
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 922 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 37 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 37 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 20 verses · 54%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 13 verses · 35%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 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: Amalek 23×, Amalekites 14×
- American Standard Version: Amalek 23×, Amalekites 12×
- Berean Standard Bible: Amalekites 20×, Amalek 14×, Against amalek 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Amalek 35×, Against amalek 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6002 across 39 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 H6002 across 39 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H6002 across 39 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H6002 across 39 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.
Senses in BDB
The 3 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- Amalek = "dweller in a valley"
- son of Eliphaz by his concubine Timnah, grandson of Esau, and progenitor of a tribe of people in southern Canaan
- descendants of Amalek
Word origin
n.pr.gent. Amalek (on—ָ v. LagBN 162 BaNB 160);—ancient people Nu 24:20(×2), S. of Canaan—in Negeb 13:29 (all JE), fierce and warlike Bedawin (cf. GASmGeogr. 282 GFM Ju 6:3, 33), foes of Isr. during Exodus Ex 17:8 + 6 times Ex 17 (E), Dt 25:17, 19; later marauders in Isr. territory Ju 3:13; 6:3, 33; 7:12; 10:12, defeated by Saul 1 S 14:48; 15:2 + times 1 S 14:28, 18, and by David 30:18 (cf. adj.gent. infr.), 2 S 8:12 = 1 Ch 18:11, cf. ψ 83:8; also הָע׳ 2 S 1:1 (where read עֲמָלֵק or הָעֲמָלֵקִי, v. Comm.); ע׳ 1 Ch 4:43; as grandson of Esau Gn 36:12 (P) = 1 Ch 1:36, Gn 36:16; appar. connected with Ephr. territory Ju 5:14 (cf. 12:15 infr.; yet GFM conj. עֵמֶק).—On Amalek v. NöAmalekites (1864); Ency. Bi. s.v..
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: probably of foreign origin
Forms in the corpus
The 19 distinct written forms H6002 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| עֲמָלֵ֑ק | Noun, Proper | Deuteronomy 25:17 | 8 |
| עֲמָלֵ֔ק | Noun, Proper | Deuteronomy 25:19 | 7 |
| בַּ/עֲמָלֵ֑ק | Noun, Proper | Exodus 17:9 | 3 |
| עֲמָלֵ֖ק | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 15:2 | 3 |
| וַ/עֲמָלֵ֑ק | Noun, Proper | Judges 3:13 | 2 |
| עֲמָלֵ֥ק | Noun, Proper | Exodus 17:13 | 2 |
| עֲמָלֵֽק | Noun, Proper | Exodus 17:11 | 2 |
| בַּ/עֲמָלֵ֔ק | Noun, Proper | Judges 5:14 | 1 |
| בַּֽ/עֲמָלֵ֑ק | Noun, Proper | Exodus 17:16 | 1 |
| הָ/עֲמָלֵ֑ק | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 1:1 | 1 |
| וַ/עֲמָלֵ֛ק | Noun, Proper | Judges 6:33 | 1 |
| וַ/עֲמָלֵ֤ק | Noun, Proper | Judges 7:12 | 1 |
| וַ/עֲמָלֵֽק | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 1:36 | 1 |
| וַֽ/עֲמָלֵק֙ | Noun, Proper | Judges 10:12 | 1 |
| וּ/מֵֽ/עֲמָלֵ֑ק | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 8:12 | 1 |
| וּ/מֵֽ/עֲמָלֵֽק | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 18:11 | 1 |
| וַֽ/עֲמָלֵ֛ק | Noun, Proper | Judges 6:3 | 1 |
| לַ/עֲמָלֵ֑ק | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 4:43 | 1 |
| עֲמָלֵ֗ק | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 15:3 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6002, 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.
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 → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Amalek). 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
Dweller in a valley, the son of Eliphaz and grandson of Esau (Gen. 36:12; 1 Chr. 1:36); the chief of an Idumean tribe (Gen. 36:16). His mother was a Horite, a tribe whose territory the descendants of Esau had seized.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(dweller in a valley), a son of Eliphaz by his concubine Timnah grandson of Esau, and chieftain ("duke," Authorized Version) of Edom. (Genesis 36:12,16; 1 Chronicles 1:36) (B.C. about 1700.)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
a people that licks up
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 37 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 37 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
- Genesis 36:12
- Exodus 17:8
- Numbers 13:29
- Deuteronomy 25:17
- Judges 3:13
- 1 Samuel 14:48
- 2 Samuel 1:1
- 1 Chronicles 1:36
- Psalms 83:7
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.
