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פָּלַל

to pray

‘to pray’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓

H6419 Strong's Hebrew
pâlal Transliteration
/paw-lal'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 84 appearances

Compare with another word →

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 verb פלל centers on the idea of “to pray.” First canonically at Genesis 20:7, it enters the text early. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 82 verses — moderately common. The verb spans 2 stems, from Piel to Hithpael. Related forms include פליל, תפלה and אפלל. Dig into 82-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
intreat
Modern gloss
to pray
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H6419 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 →

82
distinct verses
The word appears in 82 distinct verses.
18 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 18 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 20:7
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 20:7.
Jonah 4:2
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Jonah 4:2.
#483
by frequency
Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 483 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 82 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 7 · 9%
  • Historical 47 · 57%
  • Wisdom 6 · 7%
  • Prophets 22 · 27%

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 82 distinct verses.

  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 47 verses · 57%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 28 verses · 34%
  • Torah (Pentateuch) 7 verses · 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).

  • King James Version: Prayed 19×, Pray 18×, I prayed 6×
  • American Standard Version: Pray 16×, Prayed 14×, He prayed 4×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Pray 19×, Prayed 14×, They pray 8×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Pray 15×, Prayed 13×, And 9×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H6419 across 84 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Prayed” 19×
  • “Pray” 18×
  • “I prayed” 6×
  • “Prayeth” 4×
  • “Praying” 4×
  • “He prayed” 2×
  • “Shall pray” 2×
  • “Therefore pray” 2×

Plus 27 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 H6419 across 84 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Pray” 16×
  • “Prayed” 14×
  • “He prayed” 4×
  • “I prayed” 4×
  • “Against thee” 3×
  • “Prayeth” 3×
  • “Praying” 3×
  • “Shall pray” 3×
  • “Thee” 2×
  • “Them” 2×
  • “Therefore pray” 2×
  • “They shall pray” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 24 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 H6419 across 84 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Pray” 19×
  • “Prayed” 14×
  • “They pray” 8×
  • “Praying” 7×
  • “I prayed” 5×
  • “Prays” 4×
  • “He prayed” 3×
  • “Interceded” 2×
  • “Is praying” 2×
  • “Prayer” 2×

Plus 18 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 H6419 across 95 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Pray” 15×
  • “Prayed” 13×
  • “And” 9×
  • “They pray” 9×
  • “He prayed” 7×
  • “Praying” 5×
  • “I prayed” 4×
  • “Do” 3×
  • “Is praying” 2×
  • “Then” 2×
  • “They will pray” 2×
  • “Will pray” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 20 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

Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each. This entry also uses Hithpael (reflexive or reciprocal).

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.

Piel

  • . mediate, judge

Hithpael

  • 1. specif. intercede
  • 2. gen. pray
  • 3. pray
  • 4. of poetical, liturgical prayer

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

[ פָּלַל ] 84 vb. prob. intervene, interpose

— 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

Part of speech: Verb TWOT: 1776


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.

פָּלַל

  • (b. h.) to separate, divide.
    • to arbitrate, intercede; trnsf. to pray. Sabb. 55ᵇ (ref. to פ̇ח̇ז̇, Gen. XLIX, 4) פִּ֗ילַּלְתָּה ח̇לתה ז̇רחה וכ׳ thou didst plead, thou didst pray, thy prayer rose &c. e.g. Genesis 49:4
    • (denom. of תְּפִלָּה) to pray. Ber. V, 1 להִתְפַּלֵּל, v. כּוֹבֶד. Ib. היו שוהים … ומִתְפַּלְּלִים used to tarry a while (in meditation) and then say the prayers. Ib. IV, 3 יִתְפַּלֵּל שמונה עשרה should pray the eighteen benedictions. Ib. 4 מִתְפַּלֵּל תפלה קצרה says a short prayer. Y. ib. 8ᵇ top ספק נתפ׳ ספק לא נ׳ if he is in doubt whether he has or has not said his prayers; a. v. fr.

פְּלַל

  • , to argue, debate (v. פלפל). Y. Shebi. VIII, 38ᵇ top מאן גדם לך דלא פַלְתָּה עם חביריך what brought it on thee (that thou couldst not solve that problem)? That thou didst not hold debates with thy fellow students; Y. Ned. XI, 42ᶜ bot. ילפתה (corr. acc.).

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 66 distinct written forms H6419 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
לְ/הִתְפַּלֵּ֖ל Verb, Hithpael, Infinitive Construct 1 Chronicles 17:25 4
וַ/יִּתְפַּלֵּ֥ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 20:17 3
וַ/יִּתְפַּלֵּ֨ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Kings 6:18 3
וְ/יִתְפַּלֵּ֣ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Isaiah 44:17 2
וְ/הִתְפַּֽלְל֣וּ Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 Kings 8:44 2
וַ/יִּתְפַּלֵּ֖ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Kings 4:33 2
וַ/יִּתְפַּלֵּ֣ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Chronicles 33:13 2
וַ/יִּתְפַּלֵּ֤ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Kings 6:17 2
וַ/יִּתְפַּלֵּל֙ Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Chronicles 32:24 2
וּ/מִתְפַּלֵּ֔ל Verb, Hithpael, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Daniel 9:20 2
יִֽתְפַּֽלְל֖וּ Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 Kings 8:30 2
יִתְפַּלֵּ֣ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Kings 8:29 2
לְ/הִתְפַּלֵּ֣ל Verb, Hithpael, Infinitive Construct 1 Samuel 12:23 2
מִתְפַּלֵּ֥ל Verb, Hithpael, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 Kings 8:28 2
אֶתְפַּלָּֽל Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Psalms 5:2 1
בְּ/הִֽתְפַּֽלְל֖/וֹ Verb, Hithpael, Infinitive Construct Job 42:10 1
הִתְפַּלֵּ֣ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Jeremiah 42:20 1
הִתְפַּלֵּ֧ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Samuel 12:19 1
הִתְפַּלֵּ֨ל Verb, Hithpael, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Chronicles 30:18 1
הִתְפַּלֵּל֙ Verb, Hithpael, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Numbers 21:7 1
הִתְפַּלֶּל Verb, Hithpael, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Jeremiah 37:3 1
הִתְפַּלַּ֣לְתָּ Verb, Hithpael, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Isaiah 37:21 1
הִתְפַּלַּ֧לְתָּ Verb, Hithpael, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Kings 19:20 1
הִתְפַּלָּ֑לְתִּי Verb, Hithpael, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 Samuel 1:27 1
וְ/אֶתְפַּלֵּ֥ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 Samuel 7:5 1
וְ/הִֽתְפַּֽלְל֗וּ Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 2 Chronicles 6:38 1
וְ/הִֽתְפַּֽלְל֞וּ Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 Kings 8:35 1
וְ/הִֽתְפַּֽלְל֣וּ Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 Kings 8:48 1
וְ/הִֽתְפַּֽלְל֧וּ Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 Kings 8:33 1
וְ/הִֽתְפַּלְל֖וּ Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 2 Chronicles 6:32 1
וְ/הִֽתְפַּלְל֞וּ Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 2 Chronicles 6:26 1
וְ/הִתְפַּֽלְל֥וּ Verb, Hithpael, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Jeremiah 29:7 1
וְ/הִתְפַּֽלְל֧וּ Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 2 Chronicles 6:24 1
וְ/הִתְפַּלֵּ֖ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Kings 8:42 1
וְ/הִתְפַּלֵּ֣ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Kings 13:6 1
וְ/הִתְפַּלֵּ֤ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Jeremiah 42:2 1
וְ/הִתְפַּלַּלְתֶּ֖ם Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Jeremiah 29:12 1
וְ/יִֽתְפַּֽלְלוּ֙ Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 Chronicles 7:14 1
וְ/יִתְפַּלֵּ֥ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 20:7 1
וַ/יְפַלֵּ֑ל Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Psalms 106:30 1
וַ/יִּ֨תְפַּלֵּ֔ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Kings 20:2 1
וַ/יִּתְפַּלֵּ֞ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Chronicles 32:20 1
וַ/נִּתְפַּלֵּ֖ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Plural Nehemiah 4:9 1
וַ/תִּתְפַּלֵּ֤ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 Samuel 2:1 1
וַ/תִּתְפַּלֵּ֥ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 Samuel 1:10 1
וָ/אֶתְפַּלֵּ֖ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Jeremiah 32:16 1
וָ/אֶתְפַּלֵּ֣ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Deuteronomy 9:26 1
וָֽ/אֶתְפַּֽלְלָ֛/ה Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Daniel 9:4 1
וָֽ/אֶתְפַּלֵּ֔ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Nehemiah 2:4 1
וָֽ/אֶתְפַּלֵּ֛ל Verb, Hithpael, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Deuteronomy 9:20 1
וּ/כְ/הִתְפַּלֵּ֤ל Verb, Hithpael, Infinitive Construct Ezra 10:1 1
וּ/מִתְפַּלְלִ֔ים Verb, Hithpael, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute Isaiah 45:20 1
וּ/פִֽלְל֣/וֹ Verb, Piel, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Samuel 2:25 1
יִתְפַּלֵּ֖ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Job 42:8 1
יִתְפַּלֵּ֬ל Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Psalms 32:6 1
יִתְפַּלֶּל Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Samuel 2:25 1
יִתְפַּלָּ֔לוּ Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Isaiah 45:14 1
לְ/הִתְפַּלֵּ֔ל Verb, Hithpael, Infinitive Construct 2 Chronicles 7:1 1
לְ/הִתְפַּלֵּל֙ Verb, Hithpael, Infinitive Construct 1 Kings 8:54 1
מִתְפַּלֵּ֛ל Verb, Hithpael, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 42:4 1

The 60 most common forms are shown; 6 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.


Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6419, 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 → Showing 4 of 6 — not the complete family. 3 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 75 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 82 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.

Reading settings

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Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

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