קדם
east
also: antiquity, front, aforetime 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.
- Adverb
- A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
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.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H6924 appears in the Book of Proverbs — 2 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
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.
קדם — transliterated qedem — is a Hebrew word carrying the sense “east.” Debuting at Genesis 2:8, it then recurs through the corpus. With 83 verses in 22 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. Alongside “east” the lexicon also lists “antiquity”, “front”, and “aforetime” — part of its full sense range. Sharing its root, it stands alongside קדם, קדום and קדים. See the sense tree, 83-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6924 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 →
- 83
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 83 distinct verses.
- 22 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 22 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #470
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 470 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 83 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 83 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 37 verses · 45%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 25 verses · 30%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 21 verses · 25%
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†: East 29×, Old 15×, Eastward 10×
- American Standard Version†: East 29×, Old 15×, Eastward 10×
- Berean Standard Bible†: East 35×, Old 12×, Eastern 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: East 38×, Antiquity 14×, Eastward 12×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6924 across 86† 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H6924 across 86† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 H6924 across 85† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H6924 across 85† 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.
9 senses and sub-senses in the full BDB
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 9 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.
קדם I [m.] front, east, aforetime
- 1. loc.
- a. front, מִקּ׳ Is 9:11 from the front (i.e. East), in front (opp. מֵאָחוֹר), אָחוֹר וָק׳ ψ 139:5 behind and before; ק׳ אֶהֱלֹךְ Jb 23:8 I go forward (opp. אָחוֹר). e.g. Isaiah 9:11
- b. East: הַר־הַקּ׳ Gn 10:30 (J) mount of the East; בְּנֵי־ק׳ = dwellers in the E., tribes E. or NE. of Canaan Gn 29:1 (E), Ju 6:3, 33; 7:12; 8:10; 1 K 5:10; Is 11:14; Je 49:28; Ez 25:4, 10; Jb 1:3; הַרְרֵי ק׳ Nu 23:7, v. Di SachauReise (1883), 159 ff. 165 ff. Dr in Hastpethor; אֶרֶץ ק׳ Gn 25:6 (J); מָֽלְאוּ מִקֶּדֶם Is 2:6 they are full from the E. (ins. prob. קֶסֶם, מִקְסָם, or קֹסְמִים before מִקּ׳, cf. Lo De Du CheHpt. Di-Kit); elsewhere מִקּ׳ = eastward: (1) in the E. Gn 2:8; (2) on the E. (side) 12:8 (J) Zc 14:4; מִקּ׳ לְ on the E. of Gn 3:24 (J), 12:8 (J), Nu 34:11 (P), Jos 7:2 (JE), Ju 8:11; Ez 11:23; Jon 4:5; (3) eastward, c. vb. of motion Gn 11:2; 13:11 (both J). e.g. Genesis 10:30
- 2. temp., ancient time, aforetime:
- a. הַרְרֵי ק׳ Dt 33:15 ancient mts., cf. אֱלֹהֵי ק׳ v 27, מַלְכֵי־ק׳ Is 19:11, בִּשְׁמֵי שְׁמֵי־ק׳ ψ 68:34. e.g. Deuteronomy 33:15
- b. בִּימֵי ק׳ ψ 44:2 in ancient days; cf. מִימֵי ק׳ from of old Is 23:7; Mi 7:20; La 1:7; 2:17, Is 37:26 = לְמִימֵי ק׳ 2 K 19:25 (v. מִן 9 b (2)); כִּימֵי ק׳ Is 51:9; Je 46:26; יַרְחֵי קֹ Jb 29:2 months of old. e.g. Psalms 44:2
- c. מִקּ׳ from of old Mi 5:1; Is 45:21; 46:10; Hb 1:12; Ne 12:46 ψ 74:12; 77:12; מִנִּי־ק׳ 78:2 springing out of, derived from, ancient times (cf. Dr); יָמִים מִקּ׳ 77:6; 143:5 days from of old. e.g. Micah 5:1
- d. ק׳ alone, as adv. anciently, of old ψ 74:2; 119:152; כְּק׳ Je 30:20; La 5:21; ישֵׁב ק׳ ψ 55:20 he that sitteth (enthroned from) of old. e.g. Psalms 74:2
- e. beginning, מִקַּדְמֵי־אָ֑רֶץ Pr 8:23 from the beginnings of the earth; ק׳ מִפְעָלָיו Pr 8:22 the beginning of his works (‖ רֵאשִׁית). e.g. Proverbs 8:23
קדם II c. ה loc. i. קִ֫דְמָה adv. eastward to, toward the East
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. n.[m.] front, east, aforetime;—abs. ק׳ Dt 33:27 +, קֶ֑דֶם Ju 8:10 +, cstr. קֶדֶם Pr 8:22; once pl. cstr. קַדְמֵי v 23;—
I. c. ה loc. i. קִ֫דְמָה adv. eastward to, toward the East;—Gn 25:6 (J), Lv 1:16; 16:14; Nu 34:3, 11, 15; Jos 19:12, 13 (all P), 1 K 7:39 = 2 Ch 4:10; 1 K 17:3; 2 K 13:17; Ez 8:16(×2); + N, S, W, Gn 13:14; 28:14 (both J), Nu 2:3; 3:28; 10:5 (N, W, in 𝔊), 34:10 (all P); also as n. after פְּאַח = E. side, Ex 27:13; 38:13 (both P), + W Ez 45:7 (del. Co; read קֶדֶם Berthol Toy Krae), + N, S, W, Nu 35:5 Jos 18:20 so גְּבוּל ק׳ 15:5 (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 קדם (qâdam) (H6923) — to meet.
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.
קָדַם
- (b. h.) [to bend, go forward,] to advance, precede; to anticipate. Y. Meg. III, 74ᵃ bot. צפה … מוטב שיִקְדּוֹם … לכספו וכ׳ the Lord foresaw that Haman the wicked would weigh his silver for Israel’s destruction (Esth. III, 9), and he said, it is better that my children’s silver (the half-Shekel, Ex. XXX, 11 sq.) anticipate Haman’s silver (to act as a protection from evil designs); ib. I, 70ᵈ bot. שיַּקְדִּים (Hif.). Sifra Vayiḳra, Ḥob., Par. 3, ch. V, v. infra. Gen. R. s. 1 ששה דברים קָדְמוּ וכ׳ six things preceded the creation of the world. Ib. איני יודע איזה מהן קוֹדֵם אם התורה קָדְמָה וכ׳ I know not yet, which of them was first, whether the Torah was created before the throne of glory &c. Ib. התורה קדמה וכ׳, v. קְרִימָה. Ḥull. 100ᵃ, sq. ק׳ וסלקו he removed it first (before putting in other pieces). Snh. 38ᵃ; Lev. R. s. 14, beg. יתוש קְדָמְךָ, v. יַתּוּשׁ. B. Mets. II, 11 אבדתו … אבדתו קוֹדֶמֶת if a man’s own loss and his father’s loss are to be attended to, his own has the precedence; ib. שלו קודמת (Bab. ed. 33ᵃ קודם). Ab. III, 9 כל … קודמת לחכמתו וכ׳ he to whom fear of sin comes before his learning, his learning will endure. Y. Ned. IX, 42ᶜ bot. חיי העיר הזאת קוֹדְמִין וכ׳ the supply of provisions for the people of one’s own town has the precedence over &c. Kel. XXV, 4, v. כַּתְּ; a. fr. e.g. Esther 3:9
- , Taan. 20ᵃ נקדמה, v. נָקַד I.]
- to get the start of. Y. Taan. I, end, 64ᵈ שלא יְקַדְּמֶנּוּ אחר lest another man get ahead of him (in proposing to a woman he desires to marry); Y. Bets. V, 63ᵃ bot. Sifré Deut. 34 לא קִידְּמוּם מצוות וכ׳ no other commands were promulgated before them; a. fr.
- 1. to advance; to do first; to anticipate, provide against. Y. Meg. l. c. לפיכך מַקְדִּימִין וקירין וכ׳ therefore we read the section of Sh’ḳalim first (before the first of Adar, and before the Sabbath Zakhor); Bab. ib. 13ᵇ לפיכך ה׳ שקליהן וכ׳ therefore the Lord ordered their Shekels in anticipation of his (Haman’s) Shekels, v. supra. Ib. 30ᵃ מקדימין לשבת שעברה we read it the Sabbath before, opp. מאחרין. Ib. when Purim falls on a Friday, מקדימין פרשת זכור we read the section Zakhor on the Sabbath previous. Y. Sot. VIII, 22ᵈ bot. ה׳ לו שכרי if he paid the builder in advance. Zeb. 106ᵃ (ref. to Lev. IV, 12) שיהא שם דשן שיַקְדִּים לשם דשן this means that ashes must be there, that he must first have put ashes there; Sifra Vayikra l. c. שׁיִקְדּו̇ם; a. fr.—ה׳ שלום to salute first. Ber. 6ᵇ כל שיודע … יקדים לו שלום he who knows his neighbor to be in the habit of greeting him, should salute him first. Ib. 17ᵃ לא הִקְדִּימוֹ אדם וכ׳ never was a man the first in saluting him, not even a stranger &c. Ex. R. s. 23 באו … להַקְדִּים שירה the angels came wanting to be the first to offer song; יַקְדִּימוּ בני תחלה let my children be the first; a. v. fr.—Part. pass. מוּקְדָּם; f. מוּקְדֶּמֶת; pl. מוּקְדָּמִים &c. Pes. 6ᵇ, a. fr. אין מ׳ ומאוחר וכ׳, v. אָחַר. Shebi. X, 5, v. פְּרוֹזְבּוּל. Ib. שטרי חוב המ׳ antedated notes of indebtedness. M. Mets. V, 10 נתן עיניו … זו היא רבית מ׳ if he intends to borrow money, and he sends his neighbor a gift and says, ‘in order to make thee inclined to lend me money’,—this is interest paid in advance; a. fr.—2) to be early, zealous. Naz. 23ᵇ, a. e. לעולם יקדים אדם לדבר וכ׳ man should always be anxious to do a good deed as early as possible. Pes. 4ᵃ, a. e. מקדימין וכ׳, v. זָרִיז; a. fr.—[Y. Erub. V, 22ᵈ top שמקדימין העליון, read: שמקדירין or שמקדרין, v. קָדַר I.] e.g. Leviticus 4:12
קְדַם
- ; Pa. קַדֵּם
- 1. to precede; to do early, be early, first. Targ. Ps. LXIX, 32 דקַדִּימוּ קרנוי וכ׳ (some ed. דקָדִ׳) whose horns grew prior to its hoofs. Targ. Gen. XIX, 2; a. fr.—Ber. 8ᵃ מְקַדְּמֵי וכ׳; קַדִּימוּ וחשיכו, v. חֲשַׁךְ I. Tam. 27ᵇ וקַדֵּים וכ׳, v. הֲשַׁךְ I; a. e.
- 2. to go before, come to meet. Targ. Ps. LXXXVIII, 14. Ib. LXXIX, 8 יקדמון לן Ms. (ed. לך, corr. acc.); a. fr.
- 1. to be early. Targ. Gen. XXVI, 31. Targ. I Sam. XVII, 16; a. fr.
- 2. to precede, anticipate. Targ. Job XLI, 3; a. e.
- 3. to get the start of; to prevent. Targ. Ps. XVII, 13; a. e.—3) to be earlier than, be quick in doing. Ib. CXIX, 147, sq.; a. fr.—Sabb. 119ᵃ אי רגיליתו לאַקְדּוּמֵי … אַקְדִּימוּ if you are accustomed to take an early meal, make it later (on the Sabbath), and if you are used to dine late, dine earlier. Ib. 151ᵇ when a poor man comes, אַקְדִּים … דליקַדְּמוּ וכ׳ be quick in giving him bread, in order that people may be ready to do so to thy children.
- 4. to give preference to. Y. Snh. I, 18ᶜ bot. אַקִדְּמוּן ליה … בעיבור they preferred a certain old man to him at the session for intercalation; Y. R. Hash. II, 58ᵇ top; a. e.
קֶדֶם
- (b. h.) olden time, (adv.) before, v. קוֹדֶם.
קֶדֶם ²
- Targ. Ez. XXXVIII, 17; a. e.
קָדָם
- (preced.) [precedence,]
- 1. (prepos. of time and place) before. Targ. Gen. XXIX, 26. Ib. XLIII, 29; a. fr.—With suffix of personal pronoun mostly in pl. Targ. Prov. XXIII, 1 קָדָמָךְ ed. Lag. (oth. ed. קָדָמָיִךְ). Targ. Ps. XCVI, 9 מן קֳדָמוֹי. Ib. 8 לִקְדָמוֹי; a. fr.—Lev. R. s. 37 נפק … קדמוי וכ׳ a proclamation went before him, and all the people came out to meet him. Lam. R. to III, 16; a. fr.
- 2. (conj.) a) ere, before; b) מן ק׳ since, because(h.. Targ. Y. Gen. XIII, 10 ק׳ עד לא. Targ. Prov. VIII, 23. Ib. 25 Ms. (ed. קְדִים); a. fr.—Targ. O. a. Y. II Ex. XIX, 18 מן ק׳ (Y. I מן בגלל).—Y. Yeb. XII, 13ᵃ top; Y. Snh. I, 19ᵃ bot. קרבת קַדְמָנָא she came before us; ורקת קדמנא and spat in our presence; Y. M. Kat. III, 82ᵃ bot. קוּדְמֵינָא; Yeb. 39ᵇ; a. e.—V. קַדְמִין. e.g. Exodus 19:18
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 36 distinct written forms H6924 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6924, 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
- קדום qâdûwm H6917 antiquity
- קדים qâdîym H6921 east
- קדמה qadmâh H6927 antiquity
- קדמון qadmôwn H6930 eastern
- קדמי qadmay H6933 former
- קרדם qardôm H7134 axe
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 13 — 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 76 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 83 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 2:8
- Exodus 27:13
- Leviticus 1:16
- Numbers 2:3
- Deuteronomy 33:15
- Joshua 7:2
- Judges 6:3
- 1 Kings 7:39
- 2 Kings 13:17
- 2 Chronicles 4:10
- Job 1:3
- Psalms 44:1
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.
