שָׁלֹשׁ
three
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H7969 appears in the Book of 1 Kings — 21 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.
1 Kings
- 1 Kings 2:11 וְ/שָׁלֹ֖שׁ conj + Adjective Cardinal number fs The days that David reigned over Israel were forty years; seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty-three years reigned he in Jerusalem.
- 1 Kings 2:39 שָׁלֹ֣שׁ adj Cardinal number fs It happened at the end of three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away to Achish, son of Maacah, king of Gath. They told Shimei, saying, Behold, your servants are in Gath.
- 1 Kings 4:32 שְׁלֹ֥שֶׁת adj Cardinal number ms cs He spoke three thousand proverbs; and his songs were one thousand five.
- 1 Kings 5:16 שְׁלֹ֥שֶׁת וּ/שְׁלֹ֣שׁ adj Cardinal number ms cs conj + Adjective Cardinal number fs besides Solomon's chief officers who were over the work, three thousand and three hundred, who bore rule over the people who labored in the work.
- 1 Kings 6:36 שְׁלֹשָׁ֖ה adj Cardinal number ms He built the inner court with three courses of hewn stone, and a course of cedar beams.
- 1 Kings 7:1 שְׁלֹ֥שׁ adj Cardinal number fs Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished all his house.
- 1 Kings 7:4 שְׁלֹשָׁ֣ה שָׁלֹ֥שׁ adj Cardinal number ms adj Cardinal number fs There were beams in three rows, and window was over against window in three ranks.
- 1 Kings 7:5 שָׁלֹ֥שׁ adj Cardinal number fs All the doors and posts were made square with beams: and window was over against window in three ranks.
- 1 Kings 7:12 שְׁלֹשָׁה֙ adj Cardinal number ms The great court round about had three courses of hewn stone, and a course of cedar beams; like as the inner court of the house of Yahweh, and the porch of the house.
- 1 Kings 7:25 שְׁלֹשָׁ֣ה וּ/שְׁלֹשָׁה֩ וּ/שְׁלֹשָׁ֣ה וּ/שְׁלֹשָׁה֙ adj Cardinal number ms conj + Adjective Cardinal number ms conj + Adjective Cardinal number ms conj + Adjective Cardinal number ms It stood on twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; and the sea was set on them above, and all their hinder parts were inward.
- 1 Kings 7:27 וְ/שָׁלֹ֥שׁ conj + Adjective Cardinal number fs He made the ten bases of brass; four cubits was the length of one base, and four cubits the breadth of it, and three cubits the height of it.
- 1 Kings 9:25 שָׁלֹשׁ֩ adj Cardinal number fs Three times a year did Solomon offer burnt offerings and peace-offerings on the altar which he built to Yahweh, burning incense therewith, [on the altar] that was before Yahweh. So he finished the house.
- 1 Kings 10:17 וּ/שְׁלֹשׁ שְׁלֹ֤שֶׁת conj + Adjective Cardinal number fs adj Cardinal number ms cs [he made] three hundred shields of beaten gold; three minas of gold went to one shield: and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.
- 1 Kings 10:22 לְ/שָׁלֹ֨שׁ prep + Adjective Cardinal number fs For the king had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram: once every three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.
- 1 Kings 11:3 שְׁלֹ֣שׁ adj Cardinal number fs He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.
- 1 Kings 12:5 שְׁלֹשָׁ֥ה adj Cardinal number ms He said to them, Depart yet for three days, then come again to me. The people departed.
- 1 Kings 15:2 שָׁלֹ֣שׁ adj Cardinal number fs Three years reigned he in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom.
- 1 Kings 15:28 שָׁלֹ֔שׁ adj Cardinal number fs Even in the third year of Asa king of Judah did Baasha kill him, and reigned in his place.
- 1 Kings 15:33 שָׁלֹ֔שׁ adj Cardinal number fs In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah to reign over all Israel in Tirzah, [and reigned] twenty-four years.
- 1 Kings 17:21 שָׁלֹ֣שׁ adj Cardinal number fs He stretched himself on the child three times, and cried to Yahweh, and said, Yahweh my God, please let this child's soul come into him again.
- 1 Kings 22:1 שָׁלֹ֣שׁ adj Cardinal number fs They continued three years without war between Syria and Israel.
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 noun שלוש centers on the idea of “three.” Debuting at Genesis 5:22, it then recurs through the corpus. It appears 381 verses across 25 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. It shares a root with שלושים, שליש and שלישי. 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 H7969 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 →
- 381
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 381 distinct verses.
- 25 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 25 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #114
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 114 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 381 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Chronicles 35 verses 9%
- Numbers 33 verses 9%
- Genesis 27 verses 7%
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 381 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 153 verses · 40%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 128 verses · 34%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 100 verses · 26%
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: Three 288×, Were three 11×, Thirteenth 10×
- American Standard Version: Three 269×, Thirteenth 9×, Thirteen 8×
- Berean Standard Bible: Three 223×, Third 10×, Thirteenth 10×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Three 228×, Were 31×, And 11×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7969 across 424 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 43 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 6 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7969 across 424 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 57 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 H7969 across 343 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 33 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 86 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7969 across 369 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 27 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 79 further occurrences.
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.
- three, triad
Word origin
Origin: a primitive number
Forms in the corpus
The 122 distinct written forms H7969 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 62 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7969, 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
- שלושים shᵉlôwshîym H7970 thirty
- שליש shâlîysh H7991 officer
- שלישי shᵉlîyshîy H7992 third
- תלת tᵉlâth H8532 three
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 360 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 381 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 5:22
- Exodus 2:2
- Leviticus 12:4
- Numbers 1:23
- Deuteronomy 4:41
- Joshua 1:11
- Judges 1:20
- 1 Samuel 1:24
- 2 Samuel 2:18
- 1 Kings 2:11
- 2 Kings 2:17
- 1 Chronicles 2:3
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.