קְרָא
to call
also: read aloud, read out, shout 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”).
- Qal Passive
- An archaic passive of the Qal, preserved in a few forms.
Form
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- 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
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 3 times (27%)
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 2 times (18%)
- Verb, Qal Passive, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (18%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Hothpaal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 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 H7123 appears — 10 distinct verses across 2 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.
Ezra 2 verses
- Ezra 4:18 קֱרִ֖י Qal Passive pf 3ms The letter which you sent to us has been plainly read before me.
- Ezra 4:23 קֱרִ֧י Qal Passive pf 3ms Then when the copy of king Artaxerxes' letter was read before Rehum, and Shimshai the scribe, and their companions, they went in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews, and made them to cease by force and power.
Daniel 8 verses
- Daniel 3:4 קָרֵ֣א Qal ptcp.act ms Then the herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, peoples, nations, and languages,
- Daniel 4:14 קָרֵ֨א Qal ptcp.act ms He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off its branches, shake off its leaves, and scatter its fruit: let the animals get away from under it, and the fowls from its branches.
- Daniel 5:7 קָרֵ֤א יִקְרֵ֞ה Qal ptcp.act ms Qal impf 3ms The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. The king spoke and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whoever shall read this writing, and show me the interpretation of it, shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
- Daniel 5:8 לְ/מִקְרֵ֔א prep + Qal inf.cs Then came in all the king's wise men; but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation.
- Daniel 5:12 יִתְקְרֵ֖י Hothpaal impf 3ms because an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of dark sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.
- Daniel 5:15 יִקְר֔וֹן Qal impf 3mp Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known to me the interpretation of it; but they could not show the interpretation of the thing.
- Daniel 5:16 לְ/מִקְרֵ֗א prep + Qal inf.cs But I have heard of you, that you can give interpretations, and dissolve doubts; now if you can read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation of it, you shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about your neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
- Daniel 5:17 אֶקְרֵ֣א Qal impf 1cs Then Daniel answered before the king, Let your gifts be to yourself, and give your rewards to another; nevertheless I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation.
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.
קרא (qᵉrâʼ) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “to call.” It clusters heavily in Daniel, which alone accounts for 80% of its uses. It turns up in 10 verses across 2 books, an uncommon footprint. It first appears in Ezra 4:18. The verb spans 3 stems, from Peal to Pe‛îl. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7123 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 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 10 occurrences in the concordance →
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 10 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 10 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: Read 3×, Cried 2×
- American Standard Version: Read 3×, Cried 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Read 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Read 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7123 across 11 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 H7123 across 11 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 H7123 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 H7123 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
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. This entry also uses Peal (the basic Aramaic stem, parallel to Qal), Peil (the passive Aramaic stem), and Hithpeel (the reflexive or passive Aramaic stem).
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 4 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.
Peal
- 1. call, proclaim
- 2. read out, aloud
Pe‛îl
- it was read
Hithpeel
- . be summoned
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
[ קְרָא ] vb. call, read out, aloud
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from קרא (qârâʼ) (H7121) — to call.
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.
קָרָא I
- (קְרַר II) pumpkin, gourd. Succ. 56ᵇ; Keth. 83ᵇ, a. e. טב מק׳, v. בּוּצִין. Yoma 78ᵃ מצטנן בק׳ cooled his hands with a pumpkin. Ker. 6ᵃ; Hor. 12ᵃ; a. fr.—Pl. קָרֵי, קָרַיָּא. Meg. 12ᵃ, v. בּוּצִין; Sot. 10ᵃ קָארֵי. Ned. 51ᵃ Rashi (ed. קרא, corr. acc.). B. Mets. 64ᵃ ק׳ בני זרתא pumpkins of the size of a fist. B. Bath. 88ᵃ קארי. Sabb. 129ᵇ מאה ק׳, v. קַרְנָא I; a. e.—קָרַיָּיא וְקָרָוָותָא large and small gourds, all kinds of gourds. Y. Ned. VII, beg. 40ᵇ (not וכרובתא); Y. Orl. III, 63ᵇ top קירייא וקרותוא (corr. acc.).
קָרָא II
- to call, v. קרי.
קְרָא I
- v. קְרֵי
קְרָא II
- (preced.) = h. מִקְרָא, Biblical verse. Targ. Esth. VI, 1.—Ber. 2ᵃ אק׳ קאי, v. קָאֵי. Ib. 27ᵃ אמר ק׳ וכ׳ the text reads babboḳer &c. Ib. 29ᵇ מאי קראה where is the Biblical passage to prove it? Snh. 45ᵇ; 71ᵃ, a. e. בעינן ק׳ וכ׳, v. כְּתַב I. Ker. 11ᵇ bot. ק׳ בעי do we need a Bible verse for it?; a. v. fr.—Ber. 30ᵇ פוק קרא קְרָאָיךְ לברא go out, read thy verse in the street, i.e. thy authority is not recognized at college; Keth. 56ᵃ; Yeb. 40ᵃ קַרְיָיךְ, v. קַרְיָיא.—Pl. קְרָאֵי. M. Kat. 3ᵇ והני … ק׳ נינהו are these traditional rulings? are they not intimated in the Biblical text? Pes. 4ᵇ תרי ק׳ כתיבי there are two verses (seemingly contradictory); a. v. fr.
קַרָא
- (preced.) a Biblical scholar, Bible teacher. Kidd. 49ᵃ אבל אמר לה ק׳ אנא וכ׳ but if he said to her, (thou art betrothed unto me under the condition that) I am a Biblical scholar, she is not betrothed unless he can read the Pentateuch, Prophets and Hagiographa correctly (understandingly), contrad. to קַרְיָנָא. Ber. 30ᵇ, a. e. ר׳ חנינא ק׳ R. Ḥanina, the Bible teacher.—Pl. (h. form) קַרָאִים; (ch.) קַרָאֵי. Pesik. Shubah, p. 165ᵇ ק׳ טובים וכ׳ good Bible teachers, good preachers, like Levi &c.; Yalk. Hos. 533. Ab. Zar. 40ᵃ מתלתא ק׳ שמיע לי (Ar. קיראי) I have it from three authorities (as reliable as the Scriptures, Rashi).—V. קַרָיָיא.—[Meg. 24ᵇ in Mish. דרך הקראים, a censorial change for המינות, as in Mish. ed. IV, 8, a. Ms. M., v. Rabb. D. S. a. l.—In later literature קראים Karaites, a Jewish sect recognizing the Bible as sole authority.]
קרי ²
- (b. h.)
- 1. to call, name; to invite. Ber. 7ᵇ מיום שברא … שקְרָאוֹ … וּקְרָאוֹ אדון from the day that the Lord created the world there was no man that called the Holy One, blessed be He, lord, until Abraham came and called him lord (Gen. XV, 2 אדני). Gen. R. s. 56 אברהם קראו יראה Abraham called it (the Temple site) yeraëh (Gen. XXII, 14), שם ק׳ אותו שלם Shem called it Salem (ib. XIV, 18), הריני קוֹרֵא אותו ירושלם I will call it Jerusalem. Snh. 70ᵇ אין … לִקְרוֹא אבא וכ׳ no sooner does a child know to call ‘father’ and ‘mother’, than it tastes grain food. Num. R. s. 15, beg. ק׳ אותו אוהב he invited that friend. Ib. והיה קורא אומניות, v. אוּמָנוּת; a. v. fr.—Part. pass. קָרוּא, קָרוּי; f. קְרוּאָה, קְרוּיָה; Pl. קְרוּאִים, קְרוּאִין, קְרוּיִים, קְרוּיִם, קְרוּיִין, קְרוּיִן; קְרוּאוֹת, קְרוּיוֹת. B. Mets. 114ᵇ, a. e. (ref. to Ez. XXXIV, 31) אתם ק׳ אדם וכ׳ you are called men, but idolaters &c. Sifra Aḥăré, end כל העריות ק׳ טומאה all illicit connections are called uncleanness; a. fr.—Esp. קְרוּאִים, קְרוּיִין those called up to read from the Torah (v. infra). Gen. R. s. 70 (ref. to Gen. XXIX, 2) אלו שלשה ק׳ this is typical of the three persons called up to read from the Torah (priest, Levite, and Israelite). Y. Meg. III, 74ᵇ ולא שבעה ק׳ אינון are not seven persons called up (on the Sabbath)?; a. fr.—V. קְרוּיוֹת.—2) to read, recite (esp. from the Scriptures). Yoma I, 6 אם רגיל לִקְרוֹת … קוֹרִין לפניו if he (the high priest) is accustomed to read (the Scriptures), he reads himself, if not, they read to him; ובמה קורין לפניו and from what books do they read to him? Ib. פעמים הרבה קָרִיתִי וכ׳ many a time I read to him from Daniel. Meg. II, 1 הקורא את המגילה וכ׳, v. מִפְרֵעַ. Ib. 2 קְרָאָהּ סירוגין, v. סֵירוּג. Ib. 3 קורא כמקומו he must read in accordance with the usage of the place he came from. Ib. 4 הכל כשרין לִקְרוֹת וכ׳ all persons are qualified to recite the Book of Esther (before the congregation). Y. Meg. IV, 74ᵈ bot. וקְרָיָיהּ and read from it; a. fr.—Esp. to read from the Torah at public services. Ib. III, 4 קורין בפרשת שקלים they (those who are called up, v. supra) read the section of Sheḳalim (Ex. XXX, 11-16). Ib. 6 אחד קורא את כולן one person must read the entire chapter (of the curses). Ib. IV, 1 בשני … קורין שלשה on Mondays … three persons read. Ib. 4 הקורא בתורה לא יפחות וכ׳ he who is designated to read from the Torah must read no less than three verses; לא יִקְרָא למתורגמן וכ׳ he must read to the interpreter one verse at a time, but from the Prophets, three verses. Bicc. I, 1 יש מביאין … וקורין וכ׳ there are those who are bound to bring the first-fruits and to read (Deut. XXVI, 5-10), and those who must bring but not read &c. Ib. 4; a. v. fr.—Esp. (את שמע) ק׳ to recite the Sh’mʿa in the morning and in the evening prayer. Ber. I, 1 לא קָרִינוּ וכ׳ we omitted to read the Sh’mʿa. Ib. II, 3 ק׳ וטעה if one read the Sh’mʿa and made a mistake. Ib. 4 האומנין קוֹרְאִין וכ׳ (Bab. ed. 16ᵃ קורין) workingmen read the Sh’mʿa on top of a tree, or on the scaffolding; a. v. fr.—אל תִּקְרֵי … אלא (or תִּיקְרִי Chald. form; abbrev. א"ת) read not … but—, i.e. change the traditional (Massoretic) reading (for homiletical purposes). Ib. 64ᵃ (ref. to Is. LIV, 13 א"ת בָּנַיִךְ אלא בּוֹנַיִךְ read not banayikh (thy children) but bonayikh (thy builders, the scholars). M. Kat. 9ᵇ (ref. to Ps. XLIX, 12) א"ת קִרְבָּם אלא קִבְרָם read not ḳirbam (their innermost) but ḳibram (their grave); a. fr. e.g. Genesis 15:2
- same, to call, invite. Part. pass. מְקוֹרָא, pl. מְקוֹרָאִים, מְקוֹרָאִין. Num. R. s. 13 יש חתן … למק׳ וכ׳ does a bridegroom give a banquet for the invited guests and not sit with them?; a. e.
- 1. to be called. Lev. R. s. 1, beg. נִקְרְאוּ הנביאים וכ׳, v. בַּיִת. Ex. R. s. 1 (ref. to Ex. II, 13) מכאן … נ׳ רשע from here we learn that when a man lifts up his hand to strike his neighbor, even if he does not strike, he is called a wicked man; Snh. 58ᵇ. Ab. Zar. 19ᵃ (ref. to Ps. I, 2) בתחלה נִקְרֵאת … נקראת וכ׳ first it (the Law) is called the Lord’s, and then his (the student’s); a. fr.— to be read, recited. Meg. I, 1 מגלה נקראת וכ׳ the Book of Esther may be read at public service on the eleventh &c. Ib. IV, 10 מעשה ראובן נ׳ ולא וכ׳ the story of Reuben (Gen. XXXV, 22) is read at public service but not translated. Ib. לא נִקְרָאִין וכ׳ (Y. ed. נִיקְרִין) must be neither read nor interpreted. Tosef. ib. IV (III), 31 יש נקראין ומתרגמין וכ׳ certain verses are read but not interpreted &c.; Meg. 25ᵃ נִקְרִין; a. v. fr. e.g. Exodus 2:13
- to cause to call, to lead in reading. Sot. 10ᵃ sq. (ref. to Gen. XXI, 33) א"ת וַיִּקְרָא אלא וַיַּקְרִיא read not vayiḳra (and he called) but vayaḳri (and he made call), מלמד שה׳ וכ׳ intimating that Abraham caused the name of the Lord to be called by the mouth of every passer-by. Y. ib. V, 20ᶜ top קטן שהוא מַקְרֵא וכ׳ a child that reads the Hallel at school, and they (the class) respond by repeating each sentence (v. עָנָה I); גדול שהוא מקרא וכ׳ an adult that leads in reciting …, when the congregation responds with the first sentence (as refrain). Succ. III, 10 מי שהיה … מַקְרִין אותו וכ׳ if a slave, a woman, or a child reads to him, he responds with Hallelujah. Gitt. III, 1 שמע קול סופרים מקרין וכ׳ heard the teaching scribes as they made the practicing children read, ‘such and such … divorces &c.’—Esp. to teach the Scriptures (מִקְרָא). Lam. R. to I, 6 הַקְרינִי דף אחד … השניני וכ׳ teach me a page of the Scriptures, teach me a chapter of the Mishnah; a. fr.—[Erub. 104ᵇ שהקרו, v. קָרַר I.] e.g. Genesis 21:33
קרי ³
- (b. h.) to join.—Denom. קוֹרָה III.—לִקְרַאת to meet. Sabb. 31ᵃ ויצא לִקְרָאתוֹ and came out to meet him. Ib. 119ᵃ; B. Kam. 32ᵃ top לקראת כלה to meet the bride (the Sabbath); a. fr.
- to meet, join, esp. נִקְרֵי, נִיקְרֵי (denom. of קֶרִי) to lose semen. Gen. R. s. 52; s. 74, a. e. אין הלשון הזה וַיִּקָּר אלא לשון טומאה this expression vayiḳḳar (Num. XXIII, 4) has the meaning of uncleanness (by analogy from Deut. XXIII, 11).—Meg. 15ᵃ; Taan. 5ᵇ. Yeb. 76ᵃ e.g. Numbers 23:4
- same, to have (nocturnal) pollution; to lose semen. Y. Snh. II, 20ᵇ top; Midr. Sam. ch. XXIII (ref. to I Sam. XXV, 20) ותפגש אותם הוּקְרוּ כולן ‘she struck them’ (with her charms), all of them met with &c. e.g. 1 Samuel 25:20
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 11 distinct written forms H7123 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 H7123, 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
- מקרא miqrâʼ H4744 convocation
- קרא qôrêʼ H7124 partridge
- קריא qârîyʼ H7148 called
- קריאה qᵉrîyʼâh H7150 proclamation
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 7 — 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 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 10 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.
