פָּרָה
to bear fruit
also: be fruitful, branch off fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘of men and animals’
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”). Here: ‘in P’
Form
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Person
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms 18 distinct
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 4 times (14%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 4 times (14%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 3 times (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 3 times (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Feminine, Singular, Construct 2 times (7%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Jussive, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (3%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (3%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (3%)
+10 more forms (10 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 29 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H6509 appears — 28 distinct verses across 8 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 14 verses
- Genesis 1:22 פְּר֣וּ Qal impv 2mp God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
- Genesis 1:28 פְּר֥וּ Qal impv 2mp God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
- Genesis 8:17 וּ/פָר֥וּ conj + Qal wpf 3cp Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, cattle, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth."
- Genesis 9:1 פְּר֥וּ Qal impv 2mp God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
- Genesis 9:7 פְּר֣וּ Qal impv 2mp Be fruitful, and multiply. Bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply in it."
- Genesis 17:6 וְ/הִפְרֵתִ֤י conj + Hiphil wpf 1cs I will make you exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of you. Kings will come out of you.
- Genesis 17:20 וְ/הִפְרֵיתִ֥י conj + Hiphil wpf 1cs As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He will become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.
- Genesis 26:22 וּ/פָרִ֥ינוּ conj + Qal pf 1cp He left that place, and dug another well. They didn't argue over that one. He called it Rehoboth. He said, "For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land."
- Genesis 28:3 וְ/יַפְרְ/ךָ֖ conj + Hiphil juss 3ms + sfx pers 2ms May God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, that you may be a company of peoples,
- Genesis 35:11 פְּרֵ֣ה Qal impv 2ms God said to him, "I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations will be from you, and kings will come out of your loins.
- Genesis 41:52 הִפְרַ֥/נִי Hiphil pf 3ms + sfx pers 1cs The name of the second, he called Ephraim: "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."
- Genesis 47:27 וַ/יִּפְר֥וּ conj + Qal wimpf 3mp Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they got themselves possessions therein, and were fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly.
- Genesis 48:4 מַפְרְ/ךָ֙ Hiphil ptcp.act ms cs + sfx pers 2ms and said to me, 'Behold, I will make you fruitful, and multiply you, and I will make of you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your seed after you for an everlasting possession.'
- Genesis 49:22 פֹּרָת֙ פֹּרָ֖ת Qal ptcp.act fs cs Qal ptcp.act fs cs "Joseph is a fruitful vine, A fruitful vine by a spring; His branches run over the wall.
Exodus 2 verses
- Exodus 1:7 פָּר֧וּ Qal pf 3cp The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.
- Exodus 23:30 תִּפְרֶ֔ה Qal impf 2ms Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land.
Leviticus 1 verse
Deuteronomy 1 verse
Psalms 2 verses
Isaiah 4 verses
- Isaiah 11:1 יִפְרֶֽה Qal impf 3ms There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit.
- Isaiah 17:6 פֹּֽרִיָּ֔ה Qal ptcp.act fs Yet there shall be left therein gleanings, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost branches of a fruitful tree, says Yahweh, the God of Israel.
- Isaiah 32:12 פֹּרִיָּֽה Qal ptcp.act fs They shall strike on the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
- Isaiah 45:8 וְ/יִפְרוּ conj + Qal impf 3mp Distil, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, that it may bring forth salvation, and let it cause righteousness to spring up together; I, Yahweh, have created it.
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 3:16 וּ/פְרִיתֶ֨ם conj + Qal wpf 2mp It shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says Yahweh, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of Yahweh; neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither shall they miss it; neither shall it be made any more.
- Jeremiah 23:3 וּ/פָר֥וּ conj + Qal wpf 3cp I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply.
Ezekiel 2 verses
- Ezekiel 19:10 פֹּֽרִיָּה֙ Qal ptcp.act fs Your mother was like a vine, in your blood, planted by the waters: it was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.
- Ezekiel 36:11 וּ/פָר֑וּ conj + Qal wpf 3cp and I will multiply on you man and animal; and they shall increase and be fruitful; and I will cause you to be inhabited after your former estate, and will do better [to you] than at your beginnings: and you shall know that I am Yahweh.
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.
פרה — transliterated pârâh — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to bear fruit.” More than half of its appearances fall in Genesis. It appears 28 verses across 8 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its moderately common vocabulary. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 1:22. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 2 stems (Qal, Hiphil, and more). 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 H6509 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 →
- 28
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 28 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,160
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,160 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 28 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 28 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 18 verses · 64%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 8 verses · 29%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 7%
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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 4 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Be fruitful 5×, Fruitful 3×
- American Standard Version†: Fruitful 4×, Be fruitful 3×, Thee 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Be fruitful 7×, Fruitful 6×, Make you fruitful 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Be fruitful 7×, Fruitful 5×, Bearing fruit 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6509 across 30† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 22 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 H6509 across 30† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 H6509 across 29† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 H6509 across 35† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
7 senses and sub-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.
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 7 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.
פרה I bear fruit, be fruitful (NH = BH 1, פְּרִי = BH
Qal
- Pf. 3 pl. פָּרוּ Ex 1:7; 1 pl. consec. וּפָרִינוּ Gn 26:22, etc.; Impf. 3 ms. יִפְרֶה Is 11:1, etc.; Imv. ms. פְּרֵה Gn 35:11, mpl. פְּרוּ 1:22 +; Pt. act. פֹּרֶה Dt 29:17, f. פֹּרִיָּה Ez 19:10 Is 17:6, פֹּרָת (Ges§ 80 g; for *פֹּרַיַת LagBN 81) Gn 49:22(×2);— e.g. Exodus 1:7
- 1. of men and animals, Ex 23:30 (E) Gn 26:22 (J); especially + רבה Je 3:16; 23:3 Ez 36:11; Gn 35:11; 47:27 (P), and שָׁרַץ (P) Gn 8:17; 9:7; Ex 1:7, פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ וגו׳ Gn 1:22, 28; 9:1. e.g. Exodus 23:30
- 2. of vine, גֶּפֶן פֹּרִיָּה Is 32:12 fruitful vine, so ψ 128:3 (sim. of wife); cf. (in fig. of Isr.) Ez 19:10; in Mess. prediction Is 11:1 a shoot from his [Jesse’s] roots shall bear fruit; c. acc. שֹׁרֶשׁ פ׳ רֹאשׁ fig., Dt 29:17 a root bearing gall (as its fruit); יִפְרוּ יֶשַׁע Is 45:8 is dub., read perhaps 3 fs. תֵּפֶר let earth be fruitful in salvation (Oort al.); Pt. f., as subst., הַפֹּרִיָּה the fruit-bearer, poet. for tree, Is 17:6 (cf. [סָעִיף] 2); so בֵּן פֹּרָת Gn 49:22(×2) Joseph is son of a fruit-bearer, i.e. a fruitful bough. e.g. Isaiah 32:12
Hiphil
- 1. cause to bear fruit, 2. make fruitful, subj. י׳, c. acc. of man or people:
- 1. Pf. 3 ms. sf. הִפְרַנִי Gn 41:52 (E). e.g. Genesis 41:52
- 2. in P, וְהִפְרֵתִ֫י Gn 17:6, 20 (-רֵיתֵ֫י), + הִרְבָּה Lv 26:9 (H); Impf. 3 ms. juss. יַפְרְךָ וְיַרְבְּךָ Gn 28:3, וַיֶּפֶר ψ 105:24; Pt. הִנְנִי מַפְרְךָ וְהִרְבִּיתִךָ Gn 48:4 e.g. Genesis 17:6
- 3. shew fruitfulness, bear fruit (Ges§ 53 c, d, g): Impf. 3 ms. יַפְרִיא Ho 13:15 (as if from פרא). e.g. Hosea 13:15
פרה II heifer, cow
פרה III loc. in Benj., הַפּ׳ Jos 18
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
I. vb. bear fruit, be fruitful (NH = BH 1, פְּרִי = BH; Ph. פר fruit; Ethiopic ፈርየ: ፈረየ: blossom, bear fruit; Assyrian pirʾu, posterity; cf. also 𝔗 פֵּירָא, Syriac ܦܶܐܪܳܐ fruit, and BaZMG xii (1887), 604);—
III. n.f. heifer, cow;—abs. פ׳ Is 11:7 +; sf. פָּרָתוֹ Jb 21:10; pl. פָּרוֹת Gn 32:16 +, פָּרֹת 41:26; cstr. פָּרוֹת Am 4:1;—as gift Gn 32:16; in Pharaoh’s dream 41:2, 3(×2) + 8 times 41; drawing cart 1 S 6:7, 12, 14 + פ׳ עָלוֹת v 7, 10 cows giving suck, milch cows; פ׳ calving Jb 21:10, grazing Is 11:7; פ׳ אֲדֻמָּה red heifer Nu 19:2, cf. v 5, 6, 9, 10; sim. of stubbornness Ho 4:16; פָּרוֹת הַבָּשָׁן Am 4:1, fig. of luxurious women.
IV. n.pr.loc. in Benj., הַפּ׳ Jos 18:23, Φαρα, Αφρα.
— 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.
פָּרָה I
- cow, v. פָּר.
פָּרָה II
- to be fruitful, v. פרי.
פָּרָה III
- , v. פָּרָא II
פרי
- [to break through,] to grow, increase, be fruitful. Gitt. 57ᵃ כלומר פְּרוּ ורבו וכ׳ intimating, ‘multiply and increase like chickens’. Num. R. s. 11 את פְּרֵה ורבה לגוי גדול be thou fruitful and grow to be a great nation. Ib. כל מה … היה פָּרֶה ורבה whatever existed in the Temple grew and increased (v. פַּרְוַיִם). Ḥag. 16ᵃ פָּרִין ורבין כבני אדם they increase by propagation like human beings. Ḥull. 92ᵃ (ref. to כפרחת, Gen. XL, 10) הגיע לִפְרוֹת ולרבות … the time has come for Israel to grow and increase (as a nation); a. fr. e.g. Genesis 40:10
- 1. to cause to grow, make fruitful. Ber. 40ᵃ דגים קטנים מַפְרִין ומרבין ומברין כל גופו וכ׳ (Ms. M. מפרין ומרבין גופו וכ׳) small fish make fruitful (increase the sexual vigor) and strengthen the whole body of man; ib. 57ᵇ מפרין ומברין (Ms. M. מפרין ומרבין); Ab. Zar. 29ᵃ מפרין ומרבין (read: ומַבְרִין); a. e.—[
- 2. to increase the rent above the original stipulation in consideration of a loan, v. פָּרַז. B. Mets. V, 5 (69ᵇ) מפרין על שדהו ואין חוששין וכ׳ Ar. (Y. ed. ואין חושש—which indicates that מפרין is singular, fr. פָּרַן q. v.).]
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 26 distinct written forms H6509 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6509, 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 → 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 28 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 28 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 1:22
- Exodus 1:7
- Leviticus 26:9
- Deuteronomy 29:18
- Psalms 105:24
- Isaiah 11:1
- Jeremiah 3:16
- Ezekiel 19:10
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.
