פתי
simple
‘simple’ is one of 2 main senses 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
- 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
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H6612 appears in the Book of Proverbs — 14 distinct verses. 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.
Proverbs
- Proverbs 1:4 לִ/פְתָאיִ֣ם prep + n c mp To give prudence to the simple, Knowledge and discretion to the young man:
- Proverbs 1:22 פְּתָיִם֮ פֶ֥תִי n c mp n c ms "How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, And fools hate knowledge?
- Proverbs 1:32 פְּתָיִ֣ם n c mp For the backsliding of the simple will kill them. The careless ease of fools will destroy them.
- Proverbs 7:7 בַ/פְּתָאיִ֗ם prep det + n c mp I saw among the simple ones. I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding,
- Proverbs 8:5 פְתָאיִ֣ם n c mp You simple, understand prudence. You fools, be of an understanding heart.
- Proverbs 9:4 פֶ֭תִי n c ms "Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!" As for him who is void of understanding, she says to him,
- Proverbs 9:6 פְתָאיִ֣ם n c mp Leave your simple ways, and live. Walk in the way of understanding."
- Proverbs 9:16 פֶ֭תִי n c ms "Whoever is simple, let him turn in here." As for him who is void of understanding, she says to him,
- Proverbs 14:15 פֶּ֭תִי n c ms A simple man believes everything, But the prudent man carefully considers his ways.
- Proverbs 14:18 פְתָאיִ֣ם n c mp The simple inherit folly, But the prudent are crowned with knowledge.
- Proverbs 19:25 וּ/פֶ֣תִי conj + n c ms Flog a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; Rebuke one who has understanding, and he will gain knowledge.
- Proverbs 21:11 פֶּ֑תִי n c ms When the mocker is punished, the simple gains wisdom; When the wise is instructed, he receives knowledge.
- Proverbs 22:3 וּ֝/פְתָיִ֗ים conj + Adjective Adjective mp A prudent man sees danger, and hides himself; But the simple pass on, and suffer for it.
- Proverbs 27:12 פְּ֝תָאיִ֗ם n c mp A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge; But the simple pass on, and suffer for it:
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.
פתי (pᵉthîy) is a Hebrew word most often rendered “simple.” It clusters heavily in Proverbs, which alone accounts for 78% of its uses. It turns up in 18 verses across 3 books, an uncommon footprint. Its lexical range runs to 2 senses. Translators differ — “simple” in the King James Version, then “naive ones” (unfoldingWord Literal Text), as the renderings breakdown shows. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6612 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 →
- 18
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 18 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,563
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,563 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 18 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 18 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 17 verses · 94%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 6%
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 2 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†: Simple 9×, Himself but the simple 2×, Whoso is simple 2×
- American Standard Version†: Simple 9×, Himself 2×, Whoso is simple 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Simple 13×, Simple ones 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Naive ones 5×, Naive one 3×, Is naive 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6612 across 19† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H6612 across 19† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H6612 across 19† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H6612 across 19† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses 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.
- simplicity, naivete (noun feminine)
- simple, foolish, open-minded (adjective)
Word origin
[for פָּתַי LagBN 52 BaZMG xiii (1888), 353; NB 320] adj. simple, poss. as open-minded;—פֶּ֫תִי Pr 9:4 +, פֶּ֑תִי ψ 19:8 +; pl. פְּתָאיִם (Ges§ 93 x) 116:6 + 6 times Pr; פְּתָיִים 119:130 Pr 22:3; פְּתָיִם 1:22, 32;—simple, as subst. concr.: open to the instruction of wisdom or folly, Pr 9:4, 16; believing every word 14:15; lacking עָרְמָה 1:4; 8:5; 19:25; needing בין ψ 119:130, חכמה 19:8 Pr 21:11; in good sense, שׁנר פתאים י׳ ψ 116:6 י׳ preserveth the simple-minded; but usually tendency to bad sense; פתאים love פתי Pr 1:22; inherit אִוֶּלֶת 14:18, are easily enticed, misled and go back 1:32; 7:7; 9:6; 22:3 = 27:12; causing temple to need atonement Ez 45:20 (‖ שׁגה).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from פתה (pâthâh) (H6601) — to deceive.
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.
*פָּתוּי
- (פָּתָה) extended; פְּתוּי הראש a flat-headed person; [Rashi: elf-locked]. Ber. 58ᵇ Ms. M. (ed. פְּתוּיֵי pl.; Alf. פתי).
פתי
- 1. [to be open, wide,] to be accessible to influences, be compliant. Ex. R. s. 21 (ref. to Hos. VII, 11) אצלי הם כיונה פוֹתָה וכ׳ towards me they are like a tame dove, whatever I decree over them, they do and obey, but towards the nations of the world they are intractable like wild beasts. e.g. Hosea 7:11
- 2. to open; trnsf. to influence, persuade, entice. Snh. 38ᵃ (play on מי פתי Prov. IX, 16) מי פְּתָאוֹ לזה וכ׳ who persuaded this man (Adam)? A woman spoke to him; (differ. in Yalk. Prov. 943).—[Num. R. s. 7 ופותין, read: ופוֹתְתִין, v. פָּתַת.] e.g. Proverbs 9:16
- [to open the heart of,] to persuade;
- 1. (in a good sense) to win, conquer. Lev. R. s. 29 (ref. to Ps. LXXXIX, 16) שהם מכירין לפַתּוֹת וכ׳ they know how to win the favor of their Creator &c.; (Midr. Till. to Ps. 81 לרצות); Yalk. Ps. 840; Pesik. Baḥod., p. 152ᵃ. Y. Kidd. III, 64ᶜ top מְפַתִּים אותו … וכופין וכ׳ they (the court) persuade him to give her a letter of divorce, but they force him to &c.; a. fr.—Gen. R. s. 71 פיתיתי, v. infra. e.g. Psalms 89:16
- 2. to gratify; to mislead by gratifying; to deceive. Lev. R. s. 6, beg. (ref. to יהפתית, Prov. XXIV, 28) מאחר שפִּתִּיתֶם אותו בסיני וכ׳ after you gratified him at Sinai, saying (Ex. XXIV, 7) &c. Ib. מאחר שפִּתִּיתָ בשפתיך וכ׳ after thou hast gratified with thy lips (promised to appear as witness) and caused him to go to law; a. e.—Deut. R. s. 7 (play on ובמ̇ופ̇ת̇ים, Deut. IV, 34) היו המכות מְ֗פַ֗תּ֗וֹת אותם וכ׳ the plagues (by coming at intervals) deceived them (made the Egyptians believe every time that they were relieved forever); Midr. Till, to Ps. LXXVIII, 43 מפיתית בהן ed. Bub. (oth. ed. שפותות בהן; corr. acc.). e.g. Proverbs 24:28
- 3. to entice. Y. Snh. X, 28ᵈ the strong Moabite wine שהוא מְפַתֶּה הגנף לזנות which opens the body to lust; Num. R. s. 10, a. e., v. פְּתוּגְתָּא; a. fr.—Esp. to seduce. Keth. III, 9 (41ᵃ) האומר פִּיתֵּיתִי את וכ׳ if one declares, I have seduced that man’s daughter. Ib. 4 המְפַתֶּה נותן the seducer pays three fines, opp. to אונס; a. fr.—Y. Keth. III, 27ᵇ שהפיתתו, read: שהיא פִיתְּתוֹ when she seduced him.
- to be persuaded; to be seduced. Gen. R. s. 71; Yalk. ib. 127 פּוּתֵּיתִי (not פית׳), v. יָסַת.—Part. f. מְפוּתָּה a seduced woman. Keth. 39ᵇ; a. fr.
- 1. to be widened. Yalk. Is. 302 אף היא מִתְפַּתָּה … ומרחבת וכ׳ it (Gehenna), too, grows every day wider and broader and deeper (with ref. to תפתה, Is. XXX, 33). e.g. Isaiah 30:33
- 2. to be persuaded; to be enticed. Gen. R. s. 17 מפני מה האיש נוח להִתְפַּתּוֹת וכ׳ why is man easily appeased and woman is not?; v. פִּיּוּס.—Num. R. l. c. ע"י היין נִתְפַּתּוּ וזנו through wine they were enticed and they committed whoredom. Erub. 19ᵃ (play on תפתה, v. supra) כל המִתְפַּתֶּה ביצרו יפול שם whosoever is carried away by his evil desire falls into it (Gehenna). Yalk. Is. l. c.—Keth. IV, 1 נערה שנִתְפַּתְּתָה וכ׳ if a young girl has been seduced (v. נַעֲרָה); a. fr.
- 3. to insinuate one’s self, to make one’s self popular. Esth. R. introd. (play on אפ̇ת̇ם, Ezra IV, 13) אפי׳ דברים שהמלכות מִתְפַּתָּה בהם וכ׳ even with those things by which the (Roman) government makes itself popular, as theatres and circuses, it does harm. e.g. Ezra 4:13
פְּתֵי I
- , to be wide, open. Targ. Is. LX, 5 (h. text רחב).—Part. (פָּאתֵי) פָּתֵי; f. פַּתְיָא; pl. פַּתְיָן, פַּתְיָין. Targ. Ps. CIV, 25 פְּתֵי constr. (some ed. פָּא׳; ed. Lag. פתאי, corr. acc.). Targ. Y. Gen. XXXIV, 21 פַּתְיית constr. Targ. Jer. LI, 58. Targ. Ps. CXIX, 96. Ib. XXV, 17; a. e.
- to widen. Targ. O. Gen. IX, 27 יַפְתֵּי (some ed. יַפְתְּ). Targ. Ex. XXXIV, 24. Targ. Deut. XII, 20; a. fr.
- to persuade, seduce. Targ. Prov. VII, 21 תְּפַתֵּיה (some ed. תְּפאתְיֵה).
פְּתֵי II
- constr. (preced.) widening,
- 1. פ׳ ירכא (cmp. patella) knee-pan. Targ. Gen. XXXII, 26 (Y. II כף); ib. 33.
- 2. width, distance. Ḥull. 139ᵇ שיתסר דרי בפ׳ מילא sixteen rows, each extending over one mile.
- 3. פ׳ רמשא, v. אַפְתָּא II
פֶּתִי
- one easily persuaded, credulous; inexperienced, simple; fool. Midr. Prov. to I, 4 אמר שלמה פ׳ הייתי וכ׳ Solomon says, I was simple, and the Lord has &c. Ex. R. s. 3 beg. (ref. to Prov. XIV, 15) מהו פ׳ נער שכן וכ׳ pethi means (here) a lad, for in Arabia they call a lad pathia (v. next w.); אין פ׳ אלא לשון פִּתּוּי pethi has the meaning of being enticed (with ref. to Ex. XXII, 15). Tosef. Kel. B. Mets. VII, 8 מכתש של פ׳ (ed. Zuck. פתין, read: פְּתָיִין pl.) the fool’s mortar (v. Prov. XXVII, 22,) an implement of torture (v. הֲמוֹר).—Pl. פְּתָאִים, פְּתָאִין, פְּתָיִין, v. supra. e.g. Proverbs 14:15
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 16 distinct written forms H6612 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| פְתָאיִ֣ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Proverbs 8:5 | 3 |
| פֶ֭תִי | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 9:4 | 2 |
| בַ/פְּתָאיִ֗ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Proverbs 7:7 | 1 |
| וּ/מִ/פֶּ֑תִי | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 45:20 | 1 |
| וּ/פֶ֣תִי | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 19:25 | 1 |
| וּ֝/פְתָיִ֗ים | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Proverbs 22:3 | 1 |
| לִ/פְתָאיִ֣ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Proverbs 1:4 | 1 |
| פֶ֥תִי | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 1:22 | 1 |
| פְּ֝תָאיִ֗ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Proverbs 27:12 | 1 |
| פְּתָאיִ֣ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Psalms 116:6 | 1 |
| פְּתָיִ֣ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Proverbs 1:32 | 1 |
| פְּתָיִֽים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Psalms 119:130 | 1 |
| פְּתָיִם֮ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Proverbs 1:22 | 1 |
| פֶּ֑תִי | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 21:11 | 1 |
| פֶּ֭תִי | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 14:15 | 1 |
| פֶּֽתִי | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 19:7 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6612, 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
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. 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 16 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 18 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.
