עֲשָׂהאֵל
Asahel
BDB lists 5 entries for ‘Asahel’ 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 H6214 appears — 17 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.
2 Samuel 11 verses
- 2 Samuel 2:18 וַ/עֲשָׂהאֵ֑ל וַ/עֲשָׂהאֵל֙ conj + n Proper conj + n Proper The three sons of Zeruiah were there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel: and Asahel was as light of foot as a wild gazelle.
- 2 Samuel 2:19 עֲשָׂהאֵ֖ל n Proper Asahel pursued after Abner; and in going he didn't turn to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner.
- 2 Samuel 2:20 עֲשָׂהאֵ֑ל n Proper Then Abner looked behind him, and said, Is it you, Asahel? He answered, It is I.
- 2 Samuel 2:21 עֲשָׂהאֵ֔ל n Proper Abner said to him, Turn you aside to your right hand or to your left, and lay you hold on one of the young men, and take you his armor. But Asahel would not turn aside from following him.
- 2 Samuel 2:22 עֲשָׂהאֵ֔ל n Proper Abner said again to Asahel, Turn you aside from following me: why should I strike you to the ground? how then should I hold up my face to Joab your brother?
- 2 Samuel 2:23 עֲשָׂהאֵ֛ל n Proper However he refused to turn aside: therefore Abner with the hinder end of the spear struck him in the body, so that the spear came out behind him; and he fell down there, and died in the same place: and it happened, that as many as came to the place where Asahel fell down and died stood still.
- 2 Samuel 2:30 וַ/עֲשָׂה conj + n Proper Joab returned from following Abner: and when he had gathered all the people together, there lacked of David's servants nineteen men and Asahel.
- 2 Samuel 2:32 עֲשָׂהאֵ֔ל n Proper They took up Asahel, and buried him in the tomb of his father, which was in Bethlehem. Joab and his men went all night, and the day broke on them at Hebron.
- 2 Samuel 3:27 עֲשָׂה אֵ֥ל n Proper n Proper When Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into the midst of the gate to speak with him quietly, and struck him there in the body, so that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother.
- 2 Samuel 3:30 עֲשָׂהאֵ֧ל n Proper So Joab and Abishai his brother killed Abner, because he had killed their brother Asahel at Gibeon in the battle.
- 2 Samuel 23:24 עֲשָׂה אֵ֥ל n Proper n Proper Asahel the brother of Joab was one of the thirty; Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem,
1 Chronicles 3 verses
- 1 Chronicles 2:16 וַ/עֲשָׂה אֵ֖ל conj + n Proper n Proper and their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. The sons of Zeruiah: Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three.
- 1 Chronicles 11:26 עֲשָׂה אֵל֙ n Proper n Proper Also the mighty men of the armies: Asahel the brother of Joab, Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem,
- 1 Chronicles 27:7 עֲשָׂה אֵל֙ n Proper n Proper The fourth [captain] for the fourth month was Asahel the brother of Joab, and Zebadiah his son after him: and in his division were twenty-four thousand.
2 Chronicles 2 verses
- 2 Chronicles 17:8 וַ/עֲשָׂהאֵ֡ל conj + n Proper and with them the Levites, even Shemaiah, and Nethaniah, and Zebadiah, and Asahel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehonathan, and Adonijah, and Tobijah, and Tob-adonijah, the Levites; and with them Elishama and Jehoram, the priests.
- 2 Chronicles 31:13 וַ/עֲשָׂהאֵ֜ל conj + n Proper Jehiel, and Azaziah, and Nahath, and Asahel, and Jerimoth, and Jozabad, and Eliel, and Ismachiah, and Mahath, and Benaiah, were overseers under the hand of Conaniah and Shimei his brother, by the appointment of Hezekiah the king, and Azariah the ruler of the house of God.
Ezra 1 verse
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.
The Hebrew name עשהאל centers on the idea of “Asahel.” The word gravitates to 2 Samuel (65%), then 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles. It appears 17 verses across 4 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. Its earliest occurrence is 2 Samuel 2:18. For the data behind this summary, explore 17-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6214 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 →
- 17
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 17 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,368
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,368 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 17 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 2 Samuel 11 verses 65%
- 1 Chronicles 3 verses 18%
- 2 Chronicles 2 verses 12%
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 17 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 verses · 65%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 35%
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: Asahel 15×
- American Standard Version: Asahel 16×
- Berean Standard Bible: Asahel 15×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Asahel 19×, Was asahel 2×, Were asahel 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6214 across 18 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 H6214 across 18 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 H6214 across 18 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H6214 across 23 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 5 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. brother of Joab and Abishai 2 S 2:18(×2) + 7 times 2, + 3:27, 30; 23:24; 1 Ch 2:16; 11:26; 27:7. e.g. 2 Samuel 2:18
- 2. Levites:
- a. 2 Ch 17:8 (Ιασειηλ, Ασιηλ). e.g. 2 Chronicles 17:8
- b. 31:13. e.g. 2 Chronicles 31:13
- 3. post-exil. name Ezr 10:15. e.g. Ezra 10:15
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
n.pr.m. Ασαηλ, 𝔊L Ασσαηλ (on this and foll. cf אֶלְעָשָׂה);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from עשה (ʻâsâh) (H6213) — to do.
Forms in the corpus
The 14 distinct written forms H6214 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| עֲשָׂה | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 11:26 | 4 |
| עֲשָׂהאֵ֔ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 2:21 | 3 |
| אֵ֥ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 3:27 | 2 |
| אֵל֙ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 11:26 | 2 |
| וַ/עֲשָׂה | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:16 | 2 |
| עֲשָׂהאֵ֛ל | Noun, Proper | Ezra 10:15 | 2 |
| אֵ֖ל | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:16 | 1 |
| וַ/עֲשָׂהאֵ֑ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 2:18 | 1 |
| וַ/עֲשָׂהאֵ֜ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Chronicles 31:13 | 1 |
| וַ/עֲשָׂהאֵ֡ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Chronicles 17:8 | 1 |
| וַ/עֲשָׂהאֵל֙ | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 2:18 | 1 |
| עֲשָׂהאֵ֑ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 2:20 | 1 |
| עֲשָׂהאֵ֖ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 2:19 | 1 |
| עֲשָׂהאֵ֧ל | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 3:30 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6214, 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.
- בעשיה Baʻăsêyâh H1202 Baaseiah
- יעשו Yaʻăsûw H3299 Jaasau
- יעשיאל Yaʻăsîyʼêl H3300 Jasiel
- מעשי Maʻăsay H4640 Maasiai
- עשו ʻÊsâv H6215 Esau
- עשיאל ʻĂsîyʼêl H6221 Asiel
- עשיה ʻĂsâyâh H6222 Asaiah
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 10 — not the complete family. 7 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 (Asahel). 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
Made by God, the youngest son of Zeruiah, David's sister. He was celebrated for his swiftness of foot. When fighting against Ish-bosheth at Gibeon, in the army of his brother Joab, he was put to death by Abner, whom he pursued from the field of battle (2 Sam. 2:18, 19). He is mentioned among David's thirty mighty men (2 Sam. 23:24; 1 Chr. 11:26). Others of the same name are mentioned (2 Chr. 17:8; 31:13; Ezra 10:15).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(made by God).
+ Nephew of David, being the youngest son of his sister Zeruiah. He was celebrated for his swiftness of foot. When fighting under his brother Joab at Gibeon, he pursued Abner, who was obliged to kill him in self-defence. (2 Samuel 2:18) ff. [Abner] (B.C. 1050.) + One of the Levites in the reign of Jehoshaphat, who went throughout the cities of Judah to instruct the people in the knowledge of the law. (2 Chronicles 17:8) (B.C. 910.) + A Levite in the reign of Hezekiah, who had charge of the tithes and dedicated things in the temple. (2 Chronicles 31:13) (B.C. 927.) + A priest, father of Jonathan, in the time of Ezra. (Ezra 10:15) He is called AZAEL in 1Esd 9:14. (B.C. before 459.)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
creature of God
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 17 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 17 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.
