אֲבָל
surely
also: truly, verily 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
- Adverb
- A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
Every verse where H61 appears — 11 distinct verses across 7 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.
Genesis 2 verses
- Genesis 17:19 אֲבָל֙ adv God said, "No, but Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son. You shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.
- Genesis 42:21 אֲבָל֮ adv They said one to another, "We are most assuredly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us, and we wouldn't listen. Therefore this distress has come on us."
2 Samuel 1 verse
1 Kings 1 verse
2 Kings 1 verse
2 Chronicles 3 verses
- 2 Chronicles 1:4 אֲבָ֗ל adv But David had brought the ark of God up from Kiriath Jearim to [the place] that David had prepared for it; for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem.
- 2 Chronicles 19:3 אֲבָ֕ל adv Nevertheless there are good things found in you, in that you have put away the Asheroth out of the land, and have set your heart to seek God.
- 2 Chronicles 33:17 אֲבָל֙ adv Nevertheless the people sacrificed still in the high places, but only to Yahweh their God.
Ezra 1 verse
Daniel 2 verses
- Daniel 10:7 אֲבָ֗ל adv I, Daniel, alone saw the vision; for the men who were with me didn't see the vision; but a great quaking fell on them, and they fled to hide themselves.
- Daniel 10:21 אֲבָל֙ adv But I will tell you that which is inscribed in the writing of truth: and there is none who holds with me against these, but Michael your prince."
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.
At its core, אבל (ʼăbâl) means “surely.” Scripture first uses it in Genesis 17:19. With 11 verses in 7 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in 2 Chronicles (27% of all occurrences). Beyond its headline sense, its full sense range takes in “truly” and “verily”. Dig into 11-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H61 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.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 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
- 2 Chronicles 3 verses 27%
- Genesis 2 verses 18%
- Daniel 2 verses 18%
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) 6 verses · 55%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 27%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 18%
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: But 4×, Nevertheless 2×, Verily 2×
- American Standard Version: But 4×, Nevertheless 2×, Verily 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: But 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: However 5×, Truly 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H61 across 11 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H61 across 11 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H61 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 H61 across 11 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.
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 2 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. in older Heb. with an asseverative force, verily, of a truth Gn 42:21 2 S 14:5 1 K 1:43 2 K 4:14, with a slight advers. force, nay, but Gn 17:19 (P). e.g. Genesis 42:21
- 2. in late Heb. as a decided adversative, howbeit, but Dn 10:7, 21 Ezr 10:13 2 Ch 1:4; 19:3; 33:17 (cf. Arabic بَلْ of a truth, sometimes, from the context, nay rather Qor 2:82, 94, 110, 129, 149, 165, 261; 3:143; 4:52 etc.) e.g. Daniel 10:7
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
Derived from אבל (ʼâbal) (H56) — to mourn.
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 6 distinct written forms H61 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֲבָל֙ | Adverb | Daniel 10:21 | 3 |
| אֲבָ֕ל | Adverb | 1 Kings 1:43 | 2 |
| אֲבָ֗ל | Adverb | Daniel 10:7 | 2 |
| אֲבָ֛ל | Adverb | 2 Kings 4:14 | 2 |
| אֲבָ֞ל | Adverb | Ezra 10:13 | 1 |
| אֲבָל֮ | Adverb | Genesis 42:21 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H61, 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
Shares the same root
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 5 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). 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.
