שִׁלֵּשׁ
third
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
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H8029 appears in the Book of Numbers — 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.
Numbers
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.
“third” is the headline sense of the Hebrew adjective שלש (shillêsh). It is rare — just 5 verses in the entire Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Exodus, which alone accounts for 40% of its uses. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 50:23. It clusters with שלש, שלש and שלשה under a shared root. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8029 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 →
- 5
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 5 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,337
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,337 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 5 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 5 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 5 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: Third 4×
- American Standard Version: Third 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Third 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Third 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8029 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8029 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H8029 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears 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 H8029 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 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.
- pertaining to the third, third (generation)
Word origin
Pi. denom. do a third time, divide into three parts, etc.;—Pf. 2 ms. וְשִׁלַּשְׁתָּ֫ Dt 19:3 divide land into three parts (so Impf. וַיְשַׁלֵּשׁ אֶת־הָעָם [for MT וַיְשַׁלַּח] 2 S 18:2 𝔊L Bu); 1 S 20:19 stay three days (cf. Dr); v 20 We Dr al. (cf. 𝔊) read אֲשַׁלֵּשׁ בַּ׳ (for שְׁלשֶׁת הַ׳) = I will shoot on the third day with the arrows (HPS qu.); Impf. 3 mpl. וַיְשַׁלֵּ֑שׁוּ 1 K 18:34, and Imv. mpl. שַׁלֵּ֑שׁוּ v 34 do a third time. Pu. Pt. מְשֻׁלָּשׁ three years old Gn 15:9 + 1 S 1:24 (read with 𝔊 Th We etc. בְּפַר מְשֻׁלָּשׁ for בְּפָרִם שְׁלשָׁה), f. מְשֻׁלֶּשֶׁת Gn 15:9(×2); הַחוּט הַמְשֻׁלָּשׁ Ec 4:12 the threefold cord; fpl. מְשֻׁלָּשׁוֹת Ez 42:6 three-storied chambers.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שלש (shâlash) (H8027) — to divide in three.
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.
שָׁלשׁ
- , v. שְׁלשָׁה
שָׁלַשׁ
- 1. to do or come for the third time. Num. R. s. 420 לא יצאת אותה שנה ולא שינתה ולא שִׁילְּשָׁה וכ׳ not that year passed, nor the second, nor the third, when &c., i.e. within three years these things occurred; a. e.
- 2. to go back to the third generation. B. Bath. X, 7 יְשַׁלְּשׁוּ they should write the grandfather’s name in the document.
- 3. to divide into three parts. Ib. III, 4 מְשַׁלְּשִׁין ביניהם the fine is divided between them (the three sets of witnesses convicted of an alibi); Macc. I, 3. Ib. משלשין בממון ואין מש׳ במכות the monetary fine is divided, but not the punishment (but every one has to undergo the full punishment). Ab. Zar. 19ᵇ לעולם יְשַׁלִּשׁ אדם שנותיו שליש וכ׳ a man should always divide his years (his time) into three parts, devoting one third to Bible, one to Mishnah &c.; Kidd. 30ᵃ יַשְׁלִישׁ (Hif.). Ex. R. s. 1527 הריני מְשַׁלְּשָׁם I will divide them among us three; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְשׁוּלָּשׁ; f. מְשׁוּלֶּשֶׁת; pl. מְשׁוּלָּשִׁים, מְשׁוּלָּשִׁין; מְשׁוּלָּשׁוֹת a) done for the third time. Ab. Zar. l. c., כתוב … ומש׳ בכתובים stated in the Torah, a second time in the Prophets, and a third time in Hagiographa; Meg. 31ᵃ; a. fr.—b) divided into three, arranged in three classes, threefold. Deut. R. s. 233 (ref. to והשלשית, Zech. XIII, 8) אלו ישראל אנקראו שלישין שהם מש׳ וכ׳ that means Israel, who are called ‘thirds’, for they are divided into three classes, priests &c. Midr. Prov. to XXII, 20 (ref. to שלשים, ib.) כל מעשי תורה מש׳ היא מש׳ ואותיותיה מש׳ … שבט מש׳ וכ׳ all affairs of the Torah are threefold; itself is threefold: Torah, Prophets, and Hagiographa, and its signs are threefold: אמת (Truth); and it was given through a tribe third in order: Reuben, Shimeon, and Levi; משה מש׳ Moses the third born &c. Cant. R. to I, 1 כל מעשיו … מש׳ היו all the events of that man’s (Solomon’s) life were marked by three stages (rise, fall, and rise).—B. Bath. X, 7 ואם היו מש׳ and if the names are alike up to the grandfather (v. supra); a. fr.—Y. Shebi. I, 33ᵇ, v. מְשׁוּלָּשׁ.—c) developed to one third of the full growth, v. מְשׁוּלָּשׁ. e.g. Zechariah 13:8
- 4. (apocop. of שִׁלְשֵׁל) to let down, v. שִׁלְשֵׁל I.
- 1. to divide into three parts. Kidd. l. c., v. supra. B. Mets. 42ᵃ לעולם יַשְׁלִישׁ … שליש וכ׳ a man should always have his capital divided into three parts, one-third invested in land, one in merchandise, and one in ready money; Yalk. Deut. 897; a. e.
- 2. (v. שָׁלִישׁ) to deposit. Keth. VI, 7 המַשְׁלִישׁ מעות לבתו … מה שׁהוּשְׁלַשׁ בידו if a father deposits money for the benefit of his daughter, and she says, I trust my husband (and want it to be given to him), the trustee must do that with it for which it was deposited with him; ib. 69ᵇ המשליש … לחתנו וכ׳ if one deposits money with his son-in-law to buy with it &c.; Tosef. ib. VI, 9; a. e.
- to be deposited, v. supra.
- to have been at a thing for the third time. Num. R. s. 9, v. מוּעָד.
שָׁלַשׁ ²
- to let down, suspend, v. שִׁלְשֵׁל I.
שִׁלְשֵׁל
- (שָׁלַל I) to let down. Y. Ber. IV, 7ᵇ top היו מְשַׁלְשְׁלִין וכ׳ in (ed. Lehm. מְשׁלְּשִׁין) they lowered for them (the besiegers) two basketfuls of gold &c.; פעם שִׁילְשְׁלוּ וכ׳ once they let down &c.; Sot. 49ᵇ; Men. 64ᵇ; B. Kam. 82ᵇ מְשַׁלְּשִׁין. Sabb. I, 11 משלשלין את הפסח וכ׳ the Passover lamb is let down into the stove &c.; Tosef. Pes. VII, 1. Tosef. Bets. IV, 3 אין משלשלין אותן וכ׳ you must not let them down from the window, but you may let them slide down on ladders (v. ed. Zuck. note). Lev. R. s. 19 נטלוהו ושִׁלְשְׁלוּהוּ (לו) they seized him and let him down the wall; Gen. R. s. 94, end. Yeb. XVI, 4 (121ᵃ) מעשה שׁשִׁלְשְׁלוּהוּ לים וכ׳ it happened at ʿAsia with one whom they let down into the sea (as diver), and (in hauling him up) they brought up nothing but his leg.; Y. ib. 15ᵈ top ששלשלהו הים (corr. acc.). Erub. 87ᵃ מְשַׁלְשֵׁל דלי וכ׳ he may let the bucket down and fill &c.; Tosef. ib. IX (VI), 24. Gen. R. s. 11 צריך לְשַׁלְשֵׁל (on the Sabbath) one must let his cloak hang down (not tuck up as for travel). Ib. ושִׁילְשְׁלָהּ ר׳ זעירא R. Z. pulled it down; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְשׁוּלְשָׁל; f. מְשׁוּלְשֶׁלֶת hanging down. Men. 41ᵇ כמה תהא מש׳ Ms. M. (ed. מְשׁוּלֶּשֶׁת, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) how far must the threads of the show-fringes hang down (beyond the border)?; Yalk. Num. 750; ib. מְשׁוּלְשָׁלוֹת ארבע (Men. l. c. sing.) hanging down four finger-breadths.
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 3 distinct written forms H8029 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| שִׁלֵּשִׁ֖ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Exodus 34:7 | 2 |
| שִׁלֵּשִׁ֥ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Deuteronomy 5:9 | 2 |
| שִׁלֵּשִׁ֑ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Genesis 50:23 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8029, 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
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 → 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 5 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 5 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.
