אֲרִי
lion
‘lion’ 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
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H738 appears in the Book of Ecclesiastes — 1 distinct verse. 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.
Ecclesiastes
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.
ארי (ʼărîy) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “lion.” It first appears in Genesis 49:9. With 71 verses in 25 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. It clusters with ארה, ארוה and ארון under a shared root. 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 H738 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 →
- 71
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 71 distinct verses.
- 25 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 25 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #499
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 499 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 71 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 71 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 51 verses · 72%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 16 verses · 23%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 4 verses · 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†: Lion 44×, Lions 13×, Like a lion 4×
- American Standard Version†: Lion 40×, Lions 14×, Is a lion 3×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Lion 38×, Lions 13×, Like a lion 12×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Lion 45×, Lions 13×, Like a lion 10×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H738 across 79† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 H738 across 76† 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H738 across 78† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H738 across 80† 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 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.
- lion
- pictures or images of lions
Word origin
I. n.m. Pr 28:15 lion (Assyrian aria, Ethiopic አርዌ wild beast, cf. also אַרְיֵה infr.)—אֲרִי Am 3:12 + 13 times + 2 S 23:20 Qr (Kt אריה), La 3:10 (id.) + ψ 22:17 (כָּֽאֲרִי for wh. read כארו = כָּרוּ cf. De Pe Che crit. note); pl. אֲרָיִים 1 K 10:20; אֲרָיוֹת (also m.) Zp 3:3 + 16 times (f. Je 51:38? but cf. Ju 14:5);—lion, lit. in narrative Ju 14:5; 1 S 17:34, 36, 37; 2 S 23:20 = 1 Ch 11:22; 2 K 17:25, 26; Pr 22:13; 26:13 Ct 4:8 cf. Am 3:12; 5:19; lion-images 1 K 7:29(×2), 36; 10:19, 20 = 2 Ch 9:18, 19; in comparison Nu 23:24; 24:9 Ju 14:18; Is 38:13; Je 51:38; 2 S 1:33; Ez 22:25; La 3:10; metaph. Na 2:12; Zp 3:3; Je 50:17; Ez 19:2, 6 Pr 28:15. For כארי ψ 22:17 read כארו, cf. above. Cf. also אַרְיֵה.
I. n.[m.] moisture (for *רְוִי Sta§ 117 c, or רִוְיְ Köii. 1, 64; cf. ii. כִּי);—abs. בְּרִי יַטְרִיחַ עָ֑ב Jb 37:11.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from ארה (ʼârâh) (H717) — to pluck.
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.
אֲרֵי
- (v. next w.; cmp. אֲרוּ) prop. behold, in most cases corresponding to b. h. כִּי, that, so that, because, if; but. Targ. O. ארי; Targ. Y. ארום; v. fr.
אֲרִי I
- (√אר, cmp. ירי) prop. to point, throw, hence (in a logical sense) to argue, question, discuss, treat. B. Kam. 30ᵇ מדקא ארינן גלל Ar. (ed. איירינן, v. infra) since we pointed out the law about the dung placed in the street as an argument against Rab. Keth. 16ᵃ, a. fr. ודקארי לה מאי קארי לה and he who raised the question, how could he raise it at all, i.e. the answer being so obvious, what must have been the impression he labored under, that he could ask such a question, or raise such an argument?—Y. Keth. VI, 30ᵈ bot. ואין קמו יתמי ואָרוּן if the heirs should rise and raise objections (go to law).
- same. Ned. 2ᵇ איירי בהון he does treat thereof.—Pes. 6ᵇ, a. fr. איידי דאיירי ב־ incidentally of treating the question of … Kerith. 14ᵃ, a. fr. (באבר אחד) קא מַיְירֵי the argument is up (about one limb). B. Kam. 30ᵇ כי איירינן when we raised the objection (taking our argument from ‘the dung’, v. supra), it was before R. N. had given his opinion; a. fr.—Deriv. אִרְיָא.
ארי
- , v. ארר) [to create a gap,] to pluck, esp. figs. Shebi. I, 2 הָאוֹרֶה וכ׳ the gatherer and his basket. B. Mets. 89ᵇ day laborers שהיו אוֹרִין בתאנים Ar. (ed. עודר׳; v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 300) engaged in picking figs. Y. B. Bath. V, 15ᵃ bot.; a. fr.—Num. R. s. 20 Tanḥ. Bal. 4 (homiletic etymology of arah, Num. XXII, 6). e.g. Numbers 22:6
אֲרִי II
- , v. preced.) [the light-colored]
- 1. lion. B. Kam. 16ᵇ א׳ תרבות a tamed lion; a. fr.—Transf. brave man; distinguished scholar (opp. שועל). Yeb. 122ᵇ. Kidd. 48ᵇ; Snh. 8ᵇ. Gitt. 83ᵇ; Y. ib. IX, 50ᵃ אין משיבין את הא׳ וכ׳ you must not argue against a lion (scholar) after he is dead. B. Kam. 117ᵃ; a. fr.—Pl. אֲרָיוֹת.—זנב לא׳ a tail to lions, i.e. the least among the great (opp. head to foxes). Ab. IV, 15; Y. Snh. IV, 22ᵇ bot.—Ḥull. 3ᵇ, a. fr. גירי א׳, v. גֵּר.—[Gen. R. s. 28 א׳ גסטריות, v. גַּסְטְרָא.]
- 2. Leo, Lion the fifth sign of the Zodiac (corresp. to the month of Ab). Yalk. Ex. 418. Pesik. Dibré p. 116ᵃ; Pesik. R. s. 27 (28, p. 133ᵇ, ed. Fr.); v. אֲרִיאֵל.
- 3. homiletic surname of the Lord, Israel &c. Pesik. l. c.; Pesik. R. l. c.; Yalk. Jer. 259, v. אֲרִיאֵל.
אֲרִי
- Targ. Num. XXIV, 9; a. fr.—B. Mets. 101ᵇ, a. e., v. אֲרב. Ned. 62ᵇ לאברוחי א׳ to drive the lion off, i.e. to get rid of the tax-collector.—Shebu. 22ᵇ, a. fr. א׳ הוא דרביע עלה a lion lies on it, i.e. it is unavailable because it is forbidden.—Ab. Zar. 31ᵇ, a. e. בר א׳ son of a lion (of a great man).—Ḥull. 59ᵇ the tiger is א׳ דבי עילאי the lion of the forest of Ilai (v. Schorr He-Ḥaluts VII, 32; cmp. Koh. Angelol. p. 103).—Pl. אַרְיָוָתָא, אַרְיָוָן. Targ. I Chron. XI, 22; a. fr.— Lam. R. to I, 9) א׳ דאורייתא the lions of the Law (scholars). Y. Shebi. IX, 39ᵃ top. Y. Sabb. I, 4ᵃ top מעלי רישא בין א׳ to put one’s head between lions, i.e. to argue against the opinions of great men. [Yalk. Num. 771 גבתא דא׳, v. אֲרִיחַ.]
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 53 distinct written forms H738 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֲרָי֔וֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Kings 10:19 | 5 |
| הָ/אַרְיֵ֖ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 9:4 | 5 |
| אַרְיֵה֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Amos 3:4 | 4 |
| הָ/אֲרִ֛י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Amos 3:12 | 4 |
| אֲרָי֖וֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Ezekiel 19:2 | 3 |
| אַרְיֵ֑ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Deuteronomy 33:22 | 3 |
| אַרְיֵ֔ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 10:14 | 3 |
| כְּ/אַרְיֵ֣ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Hosea 11:10 | 3 |
| אֲרָי֣וֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Kings 7:36 | 2 |
| אַרְיֵ֤ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 1:10 | 2 |
| הָ/אַרְיֵ֑ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Kings 20:36 | 2 |
| הָֽ/אֲרִי֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Samuel 17:34 | 2 |
| וְ/הָ֣/אַרְיֵ֔ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Kings 13:24 | 2 |
| כְּ/אַרְיֵ֞ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 49:19 | 2 |
| אֲ֝רִ֗י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 26:13 | 1 |
| אֲרִ֖י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Lamentations 3:10 | 1 |
| אֲרִ֣י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 22:13 | 1 |
| אֲרִי | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 28:15 | 1 |
| אֲרָי֗וֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 9:19 | 1 |
| אֲרָי֤וֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Kings 7:29 | 1 |
| אֲרָיִ֗ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Kings 10:20 | 1 |
| אֲרָיֽוֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Jeremiah 51:38 | 1 |
| אַ֝רְיֵ֗ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 22:13 | 1 |
| אַ֭רְיֵה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Job 4:10 | 1 |
| אַרְיֵ֖ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Nahum 2:11 | 1 |
| אַרְיֵ֗ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 35:9 | 1 |
| אַרְיֵ֛ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Kings 13:24 | 1 |
| אַרְיֵ֜ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 5:6 | 1 |
| אַרְיֵ֥ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Amos 3:8 | 1 |
| אַרְיֵ֨ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Nahum 2:11 | 1 |
| אריה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Lamentations 3:10 | 1 |
| ה/אריה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Samuel 23:20 | 1 |
| הָ/אֲרִ֔י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Amos 5:19 | 1 |
| הָ/אֲרָי֗וֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Kings 17:26 | 1 |
| הָ/אַרְיֵ֨ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 31:4 | 1 |
| הָ֣/אֲרָי֔וֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Kings 17:25 | 1 |
| הָ֣/אַרְיֵ֔ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Kings 13:25 | 1 |
| הָֽ/אַרְיֵה֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Kings 13:28 | 1 |
| וְ/אַרְיֵ֖ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 11:7 | 1 |
| וְ/אַרְיֵה֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 65:25 | 1 |
| וְ/כַ/אֲרִ֖י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Numbers 23:24 | 1 |
| כְּ/אַרְיֵ֛ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Genesis 49:9 | 1 |
| כְּ/אַרְיֵ֥ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 2:30 | 1 |
| כְּ/אַרְיֵ֬ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 10:9 | 1 |
| כְּ/אַרְיֵה֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Micah 5:8 | 1 |
| כְּ֭/אַרְיֵה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 17:12 | 1 |
| כַּ/אֲרִ֛י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Numbers 24:9 | 1 |
| כַּ/אֲרִ֥י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 22:25 | 1 |
| כָּֽ/אֲרִ֔י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 38:13 | 1 |
| לַ/אֲרָי֣וֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Kings 7:29 | 1 |
| לָ/אַרְיֵ֗ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Kings 13:26 | 1 |
| מֵ/אֲרִ֑י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Judges 14:18 | 1 |
| מֵ/אֲרָי֖וֹת | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Samuel 1:23 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H738, 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 8 — 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 61 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 71 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 49:9
- Numbers 23:24
- Deuteronomy 33:22
- Judges 14:5
- 1 Samuel 17:34
- 2 Samuel 1:23
- 1 Kings 7:29
- 2 Kings 17:25
- 1 Chronicles 11:22
- 2 Chronicles 9:18
- Job 4:10
- Psalms 7:2
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.
