פַּרְזֶל
iron
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
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Particle, Definite Article 12 times (60%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 8 times (40%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 20 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H6523 appears — 14 distinct verses across 1 book. 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.
Daniel 14 verses
- Daniel 2:33 פַרְזֶ֑ל פַרְזֶ֔ל n c ms n c ms its legs of iron, its feet part of iron, and part of clay.
- Daniel 2:34 פַרְזְלָ֖/א n c ms det + ptcl def.art You saw until a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.
- Daniel 2:35 פַּרְזְלָ/א֩ n c ms det + ptcl def.art Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them: and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
- Daniel 2:40 כְּ/פַרְזְלָ֑/א פַרְזְלָ/א֙ וּֽ/כְ/פַרְזְלָ֛/א prep + n c ms det + ptcl def.art n c ms det + ptcl def.art conj + prep + n c ms det + ptcl def.art The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, because iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things; and as iron that crushes all these, shall it break in pieces and crush.
- Daniel 2:41 פַּרְזֶ֔ל פַרְזְלָ֖/א פַּ֨רְזְלָ֔/א n c ms n c ms det + ptcl def.art n c ms det + ptcl def.art Whereas you saw the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, because you saw the iron mixed with miry clay.
- Daniel 2:42 פַּרְזֶ֖ל n c ms As the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
- Daniel 2:43 פַּרְזְלָ/א֙ פַרְזְלָ֔/א n c ms det + ptcl def.art n c ms det + ptcl def.art Whereas you saw the iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cling to one another, even as iron does not mingle with clay.
- Daniel 2:45 פַּרְזְלָ֨/א n c ms det + ptcl def.art Because you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God has made known to the king what shall happen hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation of it sure.
- Daniel 4:15 פַרְזֶ֣ל n c ms Nevertheless leave the stump of its roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of the sky: and let his portion be with the animals in the grass of the earth:
- Daniel 4:23 פַרְזֶ֣ל n c ms Whereas the king saw a watcher and a holy one coming down from the sky, and saying, Hew down the tree, and destroy it; nevertheless leave the stump of the roots of it in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field, and let it be wet with the dew of the sky: and let his portion be with the animals of the field, until seven times pass over him;
- Daniel 5:4 פַרְזְלָ֖/א n c ms det + ptcl def.art They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
- Daniel 5:23 פַרְזְלָ֜/א n c ms det + ptcl def.art but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which don't see, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified.
- Daniel 7:7 פַרְזֶ֥ל n c ms After this I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, a fourth animal, awesome and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the animals that were before it; and it had ten horns.
- Daniel 7:19 פַרְזֶל֙ n c ms Then I desired to know the truth concerning the fourth animal, which was diverse from all of them, exceedingly terrible, whose teeth were of iron, and its nails of brass; which devoured, broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet;
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 noun פרזל centers on the idea of “iron.” The word gravitates to Daniel (100%). It turns up in 14 verses across 1 book, an uncommon footprint. Its earliest occurrence is Daniel 2:33. It shares a root with ברזל and ברזלי. Dig into 14-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6523 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 →
- 14
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 14 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,513
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,513 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 14 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Daniel 14 verses 100%
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 14 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 14 verses · 100%
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: Iron 16×, Were of iron 2×
- American Standard Version: Iron 16×, Were of iron 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Iron 18×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Iron 19×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6523 across 20 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H6523 across 20 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 H6523 across 20 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H6523 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- iron
Word origin
Derived from ברזל (barzel) (H1270) — iron.
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.
פַּרְזֵל
- (Parel of פזל) to turn, twist.
- to twist one’s self, to struggle. Gitt. 68ᵃ הוה קא מִיפַּרְזֵל he struggled (to get rid of the chain).
פַּרְזֶל
- = h. בַּרְזֶל. Targ. Esth. V, 14. Targ. Deut. VIII, 9 (O. ed. Berl. בר׳); a. fr.—Pl. פַּרְזְלַיָּיא, פַּרְזְלַיָּה iron tools. Lev. R. s. 24 יהון מקשין בפ׳ וכ׳ (ed. Wil. מקשיין בפריזלא, corr. acc.) let them rattle with the iron tools and say &c.; הוון מקשין בפ׳ (ed. Wil. בפרזלא, corr. acc.) they rattled with &c. Y. Nidd. II, end, 50ᵇ פַּרְזְלוֹי הריפין his tools are sharp (he is an ingenious scholar, and does not need consultation with others, v. חָדַד).
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 17 distinct written forms H6523 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| פַרְזְלָ֖/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:34 | 3 |
| פַרְזֶ֣ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 4:15 | 2 |
| וּֽ/כְ/פַרְזְלָ֛/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:40 | 1 |
| כְּ/פַרְזְלָ֑/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:40 | 1 |
| פַרְזְלָ/א֙ | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:40 | 1 |
| פַרְזְלָ֔/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:43 | 1 |
| פַרְזְלָ֜/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 5:23 | 1 |
| פַרְזֶ֑ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 2:33 | 1 |
| פַרְזֶ֔ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 2:33 | 1 |
| פַרְזֶ֥ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 7:7 | 1 |
| פַרְזֶל֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 7:19 | 1 |
| פַּ֨רְזְלָ֔/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:41 | 1 |
| פַּרְזְלָ/א֙ | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:43 | 1 |
| פַּרְזְלָ/א֩ | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:35 | 1 |
| פַּרְזְלָ֨/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:45 | 1 |
| פַּרְזֶ֔ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 2:41 | 1 |
| פַּרְזֶ֖ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 2:42 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6523, 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
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 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 14 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.
