שָׁחָה
to bow down
‘to bow down’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Hithpael verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Hithpael
- The reflexive or reciprocal stem (the subject acts on itself).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘bow down’
Form
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Cohortative
- A first-person volitional form expressing wish or resolve (“let me / let us 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”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H7812 appears in the Book of 2 Samuel — 13 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.
2 Samuel
- 2 Samuel 1:2 וַ/יִּשְׁתָּֽחוּ conj + Hithpael wimpf 3ms it happened on the third day, that behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul, with his clothes torn, and earth on his head: and so it was, when he came to David, that he fell to the earth, and did obeisance.
- 2 Samuel 9:6 וַ/יִּשְׁתָּ֑חוּ conj + Hithpael wimpf 3ms Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, and fell on his face, and did obeisance. David said, Mephibosheth. He answered, Behold, your servant!
- 2 Samuel 9:8 וַ/יִּשְׁתַּ֕חוּ conj + Hithpael wimpf 3ms He did obeisance, and said, "What is your servant, that you should look on such a dead dog as I am?"
- 2 Samuel 12:20 וַ/יִּשְׁתָּ֑חוּ conj + Hithpael wimpf 3ms Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his clothing; and he came into the house of Yahweh, and worshiped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he ate.
- 2 Samuel 14:4 וַ/תִּשְׁתָּ֑חוּ conj + Hishtaphel wimpf 3fs When the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, and did obeisance, and said, Help, O king.
- 2 Samuel 14:22 וַ/יִּשְׁתַּ֖חוּ conj + Hithpael wimpf 3ms Joab fell to the ground on his face, and did obeisance, and blessed the king: and Joab said, Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord, king, in that the king has performed the request of his servant.
- 2 Samuel 14:33 וַ/יִּשְׁתַּ֨חוּ conj + Hithpael wimpf 3ms So Joab came to the king, and told him; and when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king: and the king kissed Absalom.
- 2 Samuel 15:5 לְ/הִשְׁתַּחֲוֺ֖ת prep + Hithpael inf.cs It was so, that when any man came near to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took hold of him, and kissed him.
- 2 Samuel 15:32 יִשְׁתַּחֲוֶ֥ה Hishtaphel impf 3ms It happened that when David had come to the top [of the ascent], where God was worshiped, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat torn, and earth on his head.
- 2 Samuel 16:4 הִֽשְׁתַּחֲוֵ֔יתִי Hishtaphel pf 1cs Then said the king to Ziba, Behold, all that pertains to Mephibosheth is yours. Ziba said, I do obeisance; let me find favor in your sight, my lord, O king.
- 2 Samuel 18:21 וַ/יִּשְׁתַּ֧חוּ conj + Hithpael wimpf 3ms Then said Joab to the Cushite, Go, tell the king what you have seen. The Cushite bowed himself to Joab, and ran.
- 2 Samuel 18:28 וַ/יִּשְׁתַּ֧חוּ conj + Hithpael wimpf 3ms Ahimaaz called, and said to the king, All is well. He bowed himself before the king with his face to the earth, and said, Blessed be Yahweh your God, who has delivered up the men who lifted up their hand against my lord the king.
- 2 Samuel 24:20 וַ/יִּשְׁתַּ֧חוּ conj + Hithpael wimpf 3ms Araunah looked forth, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him: and Araunah went out, and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
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.
The Hebrew verb שחה centers on the idea of “to bow down.” Its English rendering has broadened — “worship” classically, “bow down” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 166 verses — common. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 18:2. Across 3 stems, its meaning turns on the binyan (Qal, Hiphil). 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 H7812 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 →
- 166
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 166 distinct verses.
- 25 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 25 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #266
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 266 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 166 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 166 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 84 verses · 51%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 43 verses · 26%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 39 verses · 23%
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: Worship 31×, Worshipped 27×, Bowed 23×
- American Standard Version: Worshipped 26×, Worship 20×, Bowed 14×
- Berean Standard Bible: Worship 29×, Bow down 22×, Worshiped 17×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Bow down 31×, He prostrated himself 13×, Bowed down 12×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7812 across 172 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 38 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 H7812 across 172 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 47 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 H7812 across 171 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 38 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 H7812 across 193 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 29 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 one or more reduplicated stems (the Pōlēl/Pilpēl type), which for hollow or geminate roots behave much like Piel — often intensive or iterative.
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 5 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.
Qal
- bow down
Hiphil
- . fig., anxiety depresses it
Hithpa‛lēl
- 1. bow down, prostrate oneself, before a monarch or superior, in homage, etc.
- 2. before God, in worship
- 3. before other gods
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
[ שָׁחָה ] 172 vb. bow down
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
שָׁחָה
- , v. שחי
שחי
- to curve; to bend, bow; to lower one’s self. Tosef. Ber. I, 9; Ber. 34ᵃ; Gen. R. s. 39, a. e., v. שָׁחַח. Pesik. Shek., p. 11ᵇ (ref. to Is. II, 9) יודע אני ששָׁחוּ … והָשְׁפַּלְתִּי אני והם I know that Israel lowered themselves by bowing to the calf, and I and they were humbled; Yalk. Ex. 386; Yalk. Is. 260; Tanḥ. Ki Thissa 4; Pesik. R. s. 10 אימתי שחו ונשפלו when was it that they bent and were lowered?; a. fr. e.g. Isaiah 2:9
- to prostrate one’s self. Snh. VII, 6 (60ᵇ) המִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה he that prostrates himself (before an idol). Ib. 62ᵃ זיבח … וה׳ וכ׳ if a person sacrificed, burnt incense, offered libation, and prostrated himself, all in one act. Yoma 69ᵃ כיון שראה … וה׳ לפניו when he (king Alexander) saw Simon the righteous, he alighted from his chariot and threw himself down before him; מלך … יִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה וכ׳ should a great king like thee prostrate himself before this Jew?; a. fr.
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 110 distinct written forms H7812 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 50 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7812, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 157 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 166 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 18:2
- Exodus 4:31
- Leviticus 26:1
- Numbers 22:31
- Deuteronomy 4:19
- Joshua 5:14
- Judges 2:12
- Ruth 2:10
- 1 Samuel 1:3
- 2 Samuel 1:2
- 1 Kings 1:16
- 2 Kings 2:15
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.
