שָׁמַיִם
heaven
also: heavens, sky fuller range ↓
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
- 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.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Dual
- Exactly two — for natural pairs and some measures of time.
Every verse where H8064 appears in the Book of 1 Kings — 18 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 8:22 הַ/שָּׁמָֽיִם ptcl def.art + n c mp Solomon stood before the altar of Yahweh in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven;
- 1 Kings 8:23 בַּ/שָּׁמַ֣יִם prep det + n c mp and he said, Yahweh, the God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above, or on earth beneath; who keep covenant and loving kindness with your servants, who walk before you with all their heart;
- 1 Kings 8:27 הַ/שָּׁמַ֜יִם וּ/שְׁמֵ֤י הַ/שָּׁמַ֨יִם֙ ptcl def.art + n c mp conj + n c mp cs ptcl def.art + n c mp But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can't contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
- 1 Kings 8:30 הַ/שָּׁמַ֔יִם ptcl def.art + n c mp Listen you to the supplication of your servant, and of your people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place: yes, hear in heaven, your dwelling-place; and when you hear, forgive.
- 1 Kings 8:32 הַ/שָּׁמַ֗יִם ptcl def.art + n c mp then hear you in heaven, and do, and judge your servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness.
- 1 Kings 8:34 הַ/שָּׁמַ֔יִם ptcl def.art + n c mp then hear you in heaven, and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land which you gave to their fathers.
- 1 Kings 8:35 שָׁמַ֛יִם n c mp When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you do afflict them:
- 1 Kings 8:36 הַ/שָּׁמַ֗יִם ptcl def.art + n c mp then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on your land, which you have given to your people for an inheritance.
- 1 Kings 8:39 הַ/שָּׁמַ֜יִם ptcl def.art + n c mp then hear in heaven, your dwelling-place, and forgive, and do, and render to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know; (for you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men;)
- 1 Kings 8:43 הַ/שָּׁמַ֨יִם֙ ptcl def.art + n c mp hear in heaven, your dwelling-place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as does your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by my name.
- 1 Kings 8:45 הַ/שָּׁמַ֔יִם ptcl def.art + n c mp then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.
- 1 Kings 8:49 הַ/שָּׁמַ֨יִם֙ ptcl def.art + n c mp then hear you their prayer and their supplication in heaven, your dwelling-place, and maintain their cause;
- 1 Kings 8:54 הַ/שָּׁמָֽיִם ptcl def.art + n c mp It was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication to Yahweh, he arose from before the altar of Yahweh, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread forth toward heaven.
- 1 Kings 14:11 הַ/שָּׁמָ֑יִם ptcl def.art + n c mp Him who dies of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him who dies in the field shall the birds of the sky eat: for Yahweh has spoken it.
- 1 Kings 16:4 הַ/שָּׁמָֽיִם ptcl def.art + n c mp Him who dies of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat; and him who dies of his in the field shall the birds of the sky eat.
- 1 Kings 18:45 וְ/הַ/שָּׁמַ֨יִם֙ conj + ptcl def.art + n c mp It happened in a little while, that the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel:
- 1 Kings 21:24 הַ/שָּׁמָֽיִם ptcl def.art + n c mp Him who dies of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him who dies in the field shall the birds of the sky eat.
- 1 Kings 22:19 הַ/שָּׁמַ֨יִם֙ ptcl def.art + n c mp [Micaiah] said, Therefore hear you the word of Yahweh: I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.
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 שמים centers on the idea of “heaven.” First canonically at Genesis 1:1, it enters the text early. It turns up in 395 verses across 33 books, a common footprint. Beyond “heaven” it also covers “heavens” and “sky” — see its full sense range. It clusters with שמין under a shared root. Dig into 395-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8064 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 →
- 395
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 395 distinct verses.
- 33 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 33 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #117
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 117 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 395 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Psalms 70 verses 18%
- Genesis 39 verses 10%
- Deuteronomy 38 verses 10%
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 395 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 158 verses · 40%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 145 verses · 37%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 92 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: Heaven 227×, Heavens 80×, Air 21×
- American Standard Version: Heaven 172×, Heavens 133×, Toward heaven 11×
- Berean Standard Bible: Heaven 154×, Heavens 139×, Air 43×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Heavens 297×, Heaven 47×, Sky 21×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8064 across 419 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 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8064 across 419 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 53 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 H8064 across 410 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 14 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 11 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8064 across 414 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.
5 senses and sub-senses in the full BDB
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.
- 1.
- a. visible heavens, sky, where stars, etc., are
- b. phrases
- 2.
- a. as abode of God
- b. Elijah taken up הַשּׁ׳ in whirlwind
- 3. הַשּׁ׳ personified in various relations
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
[ שָׁמַי ] n.m. only pl. שָׁמַיִם 421 heavens, sky
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: from an unused root meaning to be lofty
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.
שָׁמַיִם
- du. m. du. (b. h.)
- 1. heaven; trnsf. Heaven, God. Gen. R. s. 1 הש׳ נבראו תחלה the heaven was first created. Tam. 32ᵃ top מן הש׳ לארץ וכ׳ is it farther from heaven to earth, or from east to west? Lam. R. introd. (R. Joh. 1) מִשְּׁמֵי מרום from the high heavens. Ned. XI, 12 (90ᵇ) ש׳ ביני לביניך heaven is between me and thee (I have an unconquerable aversion to associating with thee, v. Y. ib. 42ᵈ bot., quot. s. v. רָחִיק II; differ. in comment.). R. Hash. 19ᵃ אי ש׳ by Heaven! B. Mets. 37ᵃ לצאת ידי ש׳ to do his duty towards God (v. יָצָא).—Kidd. 40ᵃ, a. e. רע לש׳, v. רַע.—Snh. XI, 5, a. e. בידי ש׳, v. מִיתָה.—ירא ש׳, יראת ש׳, מלכות ש׳ &c., v. respective determinants.
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 97 distinct written forms H8064 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; 37 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8064, 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 362 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 395 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 1:1
- Exodus 9:8
- Leviticus 26:19
- Deuteronomy 1:10
- Joshua 2:11
- Judges 5:4
- 1 Samuel 2:10
- 2 Samuel 18:9
- 1 Kings 8:22
- 2 Kings 1:10
- 1 Chronicles 16:26
- 2 Chronicles 2:6
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.
