פָּלָה
to distinguish
‘to distinguish’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Hiphil verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
Form
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
Person
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Niphal, Sequential Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Plural 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (14%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 7 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H6395 appears — 7 distinct verses across 2 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.
Exodus 4 verses
- Exodus 8:22 וְ/הִפְלֵיתִי֩ conj + Hiphil wpf 1cs I will set apart in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end you may know that I am Yahweh in the midst of the earth.
- Exodus 9:4 וְ/הִפְלָ֣ה conj + Hiphil wpf 3ms Yahweh will make a distinction between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt; and there shall nothing die of all that belongs to the children of Israel."'"
- Exodus 11:7 יַפְלֶ֣ה Hiphil impf 3ms But against any of the children of Israel a dog won't even bark or move its tongue, against man or animal; that you may know that Yahweh makes a distinction between the Egyptians and Israel.
- Exodus 33:16 וְ/נִפְלֵ֨ינוּ֙ conj + Niphal wpf 1cp For how would people know that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Isn't it in that you go with us, so that we are separated, I and your people, from all the people who are on the surface of the earth?"
Psalms 3 verses
- Psalms 4:3 הִפְלָ֣ה Hiphil pf 3ms But know that Yahweh has set apart for himself him who is godly: Yahweh will hear when I call to him.
- Psalms 17:7 הַפְלֵ֣ה Hiphil impv 2ms Show your marvelous loving kindness, You who save those who take refuge by your right hand from their enemies.
- Psalms 139:14 נִ֫פְלֵ֥יתִי Niphal pf 1cs I will give thanks to you, For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.
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.
פלה — transliterated pâlâh — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to distinguish.” More than half of its appearances fall in Exodus. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 7 verses — uncommon. It first appears in Exodus 8:22. 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 H6395 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 →
- 7
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 7 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,835
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,835 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 7 occurrences in the concordance →
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 7 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 4 verses · 57%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 43%
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: Doth put a difference 1×, Hath set apart 1×, I will sever 1×
- American Standard Version: Doth make a distinction 1×, Hath set apart 1×, I am fearfully and wonderfully made 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Be distinguished 1×, Has set apart 1×, I will give special treatment 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: And 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6395 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H6395 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H6395 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H6395 across 10 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.
Hiphil
- . of י׳, make separate
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
[ פָּלָה ] vb. Niph. be separated, distinct
— 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.
פָּלָה
- , v. פלי
פלי ²
- to search; (euphem.) to search one’s garment for vermin. Sabb. 12ᵃ אין פּוֹלִין לאור הנר you must not search by lamp light (on the Sabbath); a. e.
- same. Ib. I, 3 לא יְפַלֶּה את כליו וכ׳ (Y. ed. יֲפַלֵּא) one must not examine one’s garments &c. Tosef. ib. XVI (XVII), 22 המְפַלֶּה (ed. Zuck. המְפַלֵּא); Y. ib. II, 3ᵇ המפלא; a. fr.—[Y. Maasr. II, 49ᵈ לפלה ed. Zyt. (ed. Krot. לפנע) read: לפנות, v. פָּנָה.]
- 1. to distinguish, speak distinctly, v. preced.
- 2. to mystify, v. next w.
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 7 distinct written forms H6395 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| הִפְלָ֣ה | Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 4:3 | 1 |
| הַפְלֵ֣ה | Verb, Hiphil, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 17:7 | 1 |
| וְ/הִפְלֵיתִי֩ | Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Exodus 8:22 | 1 |
| וְ/הִפְלָ֣ה | Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Exodus 9:4 | 1 |
| וְ/נִפְלֵ֨ינוּ֙ | Verb, Niphal, Sequential Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Plural | Exodus 33:16 | 1 |
| יַפְלֶ֣ה | Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Exodus 11:7 | 1 |
| נִ֫פְלֵ֥יתִי | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Psalms 139:14 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6395, 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
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 → 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 7 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 7 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.
