פָּתִיל
cord
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Construct-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 8 times (73%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (18%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (9%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 11 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H6616 appears — 11 distinct verses across 5 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 2 verses
- Genesis 38:18 וּ/פְתִילֶ֔/ךָ conj + n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms He said, "What pledge will I give you?" She said, "Your signet and your cord, and your staff that is in your hand." He gave them to her, and came in to her, and she conceived by him.
- Genesis 38:25 וְ/הַ/פְּתִילִ֛ים conj + ptcl def.art + n c mp When she was brought forth, she sent to her father-in-law, saying, "By the man, whose these are, I am with child." She also said, "Please discern whose are these-- the signet, and the cords, and the staff."
Exodus 5 verses
- Exodus 28:28 בִּ/פְתִ֣יל prep + n c ms cs They shall bind the breastplate by the rings of it to the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it may be on the skillfully woven band of the ephod, and that the breastplate may not swing out from the ephod.
- Exodus 28:37 פְּתִ֣יל n c ms cs You shall put it on a lace of blue, and it shall be on the sash; on the front of the sash it shall be.
- Exodus 39:3 פְּתִילִם֒ n c mp They beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work it in the blue, in the purple, in the scarlet, and in the fine linen, the work of the skillful workman.
- Exodus 39:21 בִּ/פְתִ֣יל prep + n c ms cs They bound the breastplate by its rings to the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it might be on the skillfully woven band of the ephod, and that the breastplate might not come loose from the ephod, as Yahweh commanded Moses.
- Exodus 39:31 פְּתִ֣יל n c ms cs They tied to it a lace of blue, to fasten it on the turban above, as Yahweh commanded Moses.
Numbers 2 verses
- Numbers 15:38 פְּתִ֥יל n c ms cs Speak to the children of Israel, and bid those who they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put on the fringe of each border a cord of blue:
- Numbers 19:15 פָּתִ֖יל n c ms Every open vessel, which has no covering bound on it, is unclean.
Judges 1 verse
Ezekiel 1 verse
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.
פתיל — transliterated pâthîyl — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “cord.” It first appears in Genesis 38:18. With 11 verses in 5 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Exodus (45% of all occurrences). From the same root come פתל, נפתול and פתלתל. See the sense tree, 11-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6616 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 →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,210
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,210 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 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 11 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 9 verses · 82%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 18%
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: Lace 4×, Bracelets 2×
- American Standard Version: Lace 4×, Cord 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Cord 8×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Cord of 5×, Cord 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6616 across 11 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H6616 across 11 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H6616 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H6616 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 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.
- cord, thread (twisted)
Word origin
n.m.Ju 16:9 cord, thread (twisted);—abs. פ׳ Nu 19:15; cstr. פְּתִיל Ju 16:9 +; sf. פְּתִילֶךָ֑ Gn 38:18; pl. פְּתִילִים v 25, פְּתִילִם Ex 39:3;—cord (from which seal was hung) Gn 38:18, 25 (J), פ׳ נְעֹרֶת Ju 16:9 (sim.), פ׳ פִּשְׁתִּים Ez 40:3 (as measuring line); פ׳ תְּכֵלֶת, for fastening, Ex 28:28, 37; 39:21, 31; Nu 15:38, cf. פָּתִיל alone 19:15 (perhaps gloss, v. Di); threads (of gold) in ephold Ex 39:3 (all P).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from פתל (pâthal) (H6617) — to twist.
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.
פָּתִיל
- 1. twisted thread, border, edge. Gen. R. s. 85 (ref. to ופתילך, Gen. XXXVIII, 18) זו סנהדרין שהן מצויינין בפ׳ this refers to the Sanhedrin that is distinguished by the (blue) cord (v. טַלִּית). Sifré Num. 115 (ref. to Num. XV, 38) על מקום הארוג ולא על מקום פ׳ the show-fringe must be attached to the woven part of the garment, not to where the edge begins. Men. 39ᵇ פ׳ בעינן the cord must be twisted, opp. גדיל plaited; a. e. e.g. Genesis 38:18
- 2. the twisted rim of an earthen vessel; צמיד פ׳ closely covered with a lid. Sifré Num. 126 (ref. to Num. XIX, 15) פ׳ זה העורף צמיד זה הדופק (not העודף) pathil is the neck of the vessel, tsamid the lid; Yalk. Num. 762 פתוח זה העורף וכ׳ (corr. acc.). Ib. מצילין (ב)צ׳ פ׳ וכ׳ they keep uncleanness off when closely covered, though lying in a tent where there is a corpse. Gen. R. s. 39 צלוחית … מוקפת צ׳ פ׳ a bottle closed with an air-tight lid. Ḥull. 25ᵃ; a. fr.—Tosef. Kel. B. Kam. VII, 7 מפני שהוא פ׳ ולא צמיד because a tin rim is twisted, but not close. e.g. Numbers 19:15
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 9 distinct written forms H6616 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| בִּ/פְתִ֣יל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 28:28 | 2 |
| פְּתִ֣יל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 28:37 | 2 |
| וְ/הַ/פְּתִילִ֛ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Genesis 38:25 | 1 |
| וּ/פְתִיל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 40:3 | 1 |
| וּ/פְתִילֶ֔/ךָ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 38:18 | 1 |
| פְּתִ֥יל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Numbers 15:38 | 1 |
| פְּתִֽיל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Judges 16:9 | 1 |
| פְּתִילִם֒ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Exodus 39:3 | 1 |
| פָּתִ֖יל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Numbers 19:15 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6616, 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
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 5 — not the complete family. 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 9 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 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.
