שְׁנַ֫יִם
two
‘two’ is one of 5 main senses 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
- 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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Dual
- Exactly two — for natural pairs and some measures of time.
Every verse where H8147 appears in the Book of Joshua — 26 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.
Joshua
- Joshua 2:1 שְׁנַֽיִם adj Cardinal number md Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men as spies secretly, saying, Go, view the land, and Jericho. They went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and lay there.
- Joshua 2:4 שְׁנֵ֥י adj Cardinal number md cs The woman took the two men, and hid them; and she said, Yes, the men came to me, but I didn't know whence they were:
- Joshua 2:10 לִ/שְׁנֵי֩ prep + Adjective Cardinal number md cs For we have heard how Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea before you, when you came out of Egypt; and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and to Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
- Joshua 2:23 שְׁנֵ֤י adj Cardinal number md cs Then the two men returned, and descended from the mountain, and passed over, and came to Joshua the son of Nun; and they told him all that had happened to them.
- Joshua 3:12 שְׁנֵ֣י adj Cardinal number md cs Now therefore take twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, for every tribe a man.
- Joshua 4:2 שְׁנֵ֥ים adj Cardinal number md Take twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man,
- Joshua 4:3 שְׁתֵּים adj Cardinal number fd and command you them, saying, Take hence out of the midst of the Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and carry them over with you, and lay them down in the lodging-place, where you shall lodge this night.
- Joshua 4:4 שְׁנֵ֤ים adj Cardinal number md Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man:
- Joshua 4:8 שְׁתֵּֽי adj Cardinal number fd cs The children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, as Yahweh spoke to Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel; and they carried them over with them to the place where they lodged, and laid them down there.
- Joshua 4:9 וּ/שְׁתֵּ֧ים conj + Adjective Cardinal number fd Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there to this day.
- Joshua 4:20 שְׁתֵּ֨ים adj Cardinal number fd Those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, did Joshua set up in Gilgal.
- Joshua 6:22 וְ/לִ/שְׁנַ֨יִם conj + prep + Adjective Cardinal number md Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, Go into the prostitute's house, and bring out there the woman, and all that she has, as you swore to her.
- Joshua 8:25 שְׁנֵ֥ים adj Cardinal number md All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.
- Joshua 9:10 לִ/שְׁנֵי֙ prep + Adjective Cardinal number md cs and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon king of Heshbon, and to Og king of Bashan, who was at Ashtaroth.
- Joshua 14:3 שְׁנֵ֤י adj Cardinal number md cs For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half-tribe beyond the Jordan: but to the Levites he gave no inheritance among them.
- Joshua 14:4 שְׁנֵ֥י adj Cardinal number md cs For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim: and they gave no portion to the Levites in the land, save cities to dwell in, with the suburbs of it for their cattle and for their substance.
- Joshua 15:60 שְׁתַּ֖יִם adj Cardinal number fd Kiriath Baal (the same is Kiriath Jearim), and Rabbah; two cities with their villages.
- Joshua 18:24 שְׁתֵּים adj Cardinal number fd and Chephar Ammoni, and Ophni, and Geba; twelve cities with their villages:
- Joshua 19:15 שְׁתֵּים adj Cardinal number fd and Kattath, and Nahalal, and Shimron, and Idalah, and Bethlehem: twelve cities with their villages.
- Joshua 19:30 וּ/שְׁתַּ֖יִם conj + Adjective Cardinal number fd Ummah also, and Aphek, and Rehob: twenty-two cities with their villages.
- Joshua 21:7 שְׁתֵּ֥ים adj Cardinal number fd The children of Merari according to their families had out of the tribe of Reuben, and out of the tribe of Gad, and out of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve cities.
- Joshua 21:16 שְׁנֵ֥י adj Cardinal number md cs and Ain with its suburbs, and Juttah with its suburbs, [and] Beth-shemesh with its suburbs; nine cities out of those two tribes.
- Joshua 21:25 שְׁתָּֽיִם adj Cardinal number fd Out of the half-tribe of Manasseh, Taanach with its suburbs, and Gath-rimmon with its suburbs; two cities.
- Joshua 21:27 שְׁתָּֽיִם adj Cardinal number fd To the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites, out of the half-tribe of Manasseh [they gave] Golan in Bashan with its suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Be-eshterah with its suburbs; two cities.
- Joshua 21:40 שְׁתֵּ֥ים adj Cardinal number fd All [these were] the cities of the children of Merari according to their families, even the rest of the families of the Levites; and their lot was twelve cities.
- Joshua 24:12 שְׁנֵ֖י adj Cardinal number md cs I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; not with your sword, nor with your bow.
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.
At its core, שנים (shᵉnayim) means “two.” Not a single-sense word: explore its full sense range. Spanning 645 verses in 31 books, it ranks among the most common words of the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Genesis 1:16. Sharing its root, it stands alongside שני, תנין and תרין. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8147 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 →
- 645
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 645 distinct verses.
- 31 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 31 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #63
- by frequency
- Top 100 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 63 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 645 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 645 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 256 verses · 40%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 240 verses · 37%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 149 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: Two 430×, Both 54×, Twelve 51×
- American Standard Version: Two 396×, Twelve 70×, Both 47×
- Berean Standard Bible: Two 342×, Twelve 57×, Both 48×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Two 393×, Two of them 51×, Two of 39×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8147 across 754 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 86 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 15 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8147 across 749 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 112 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 H8147 across 603 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 159 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8147 across 706 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 36 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 120 further occurrences.
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. no other num.:
- a. usually cstr. before n.pl. (צְמִידִים) שְׁנֵי Gn 24:22 + 194 times + 2 S 23:20 ‖ 1 Ch 11:22 (ins. בְּנֵי 𝔊 Th mod., otherwise RSSem. i. 469, 2nd ed., 488); (נָשִׁים) שְׁתֵּי Gn 4:19 + 132 times, 1 S 10:4 ins. כִּכְּרוֹת Klo HPS Bu Now; Lv 16:21 read du. יָדָיו Qr, + Ju 16:28 (v. supr.) + שְׁתֵּי־אֵלֶּה Is 47:9 both these thing; before n.sg., שְׁנֵי Ex 16:22 (Ges§ 134e); sf. שְׁנֵיהֶם the two of them Gn 2:25 + 62 times, + Pr 24:22 (> their years 𝔖 𝔗 De al.; prob. crpt., v. Toy), שְׁנֵינוּ Gn 31:37 + 2 times, שְׁנֵיכֶם †Gn 27:45; שְׁתֵּיהֶם (msf.! Ges§ 135 o) †Ru 1:19; 4:11, יהֶן—ֵ †1 S 25:43; Ez 23:13. e.g. Genesis 24:22
- b. abs. (1) שְׁנַ֫יִם (90 times), before n.pl. Ju 11:37 + 26 times; after n.pl. 2 S 1:1; Ex 29:1 + 21 times (usually P Chr), n.sg. (coll.) Gn 46:27 Nu 7:17 + 11 times Nu 17; n. om. Gn 7:2; 44:27 + 26 times; שׁ׳ שׁ׳ distrib. Gn 7:9 +; לִשׁ׳ cut in two †2 K 3:25; Je 34:18; = double amount †Ex 22:3, 6, 8 (E); פִּי שׁ׳ †Dt 21:17 two-thirds, + בְּרוּחֲךָ †2 K 2:9 in (of) thy spirit, + בָּהּ †Zc 13:8; (2) שְׁתַּ֫יִם (55 times), bef. n.pl.; 1 K 3:16 + 16 times; after n.pl. (usually P and late) 2 Ch 24:3 + 9 times; n. om., = two things †Is 51:19 Jb 13:20 Pr 30:7; שְׁתַּיִם = twice †2 K 6:10 Jb 40:5 ψ 62:12 (or as Pr 30:7), בִּשׁ׳ Jb 33:14 either so, or in two ways RVm (v. De); as ordin. בִּשְׁנַת שְׁתַּיִם לְ 1 K 15:25 + 9 times, etc.; (3) as round number, שְׁנַיִם עֵצִים 1 K 17:12 a few sticks (Germ. ‘ein paar’), cf. 2 K 9:32 Is 17:6; שְׁתַּיִם שָׁלשׁ Am 4:8, פַּעַם וּשְׁתָּ֑יִם Ne 13:20, cf. Je 3:14 אֶחָד מֵעִיר וּשְׁנַיִם מִמִּשְׁפָחָה = a small no.; Ezr 10:13 not for one or two days (but for many), 2 K 6:10. e.g. Judges 11:37
- 2. twelve: c. n.m. שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר Gn 42:13 + 87 times, לִשְׁנֵי עָשָׂר Ex 28:21 + 4 times; c. n.f. שְׁתֵּים עֶשְׂרֵה Ex 24:4 + 34 times, שְׁתֵּי עֶשְׂרֵה †Ez 32:1, 17; 33:21; before n.pl. Gn 17:20; Ex 15:27 +; after n.pl. Nu 7:84(×2) +; before n.sg. Ex 28:21 +, Gn 14:4 (12 year) +, etc.; as ord., בְּיוֹם שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר יוֹם Nu 7:78, בִּשְׁתֵּי עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה Ez 32:1 +, etc. e.g. Genesis 42:13
- 3. with large num.: 10 (etc.) + 2, 2 S 8:5; Ju 10:3 + 56 times; 2 + 10 (etc.) Nu 1:35 (P), 2 Ch 22:2 + 18 times (Köii. 1, 215 ff. Ges§ 97 f.); 200 + 2 + 30, 1 K 20:15; 50 + 2 as ord. 2 K 15:27 + 2 times; cf. 2 + 20, 1 Ch 24:17. e.g. 2 Samuel 8:5
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
(PhilipiZMG xlix (1895), 202 Ges§ 97b note)768 n.m. et f.du. two (NH id.; Ph. אשנם (and שני second), Pun. שנם Lzb380; Arabic اِثنَانِ; Sab. תֿני HomChr 47, Aramaic תְּרֵין, ܬܪܶܝܢ (תִּנְיָנָא, ܬܶܢܝܳܢܳܐ second); Nab. תרין, Palm. f. תרתן, תרתיא, Lzb388; Assyrian šinâ; on etym v. √, and especially PhilippiZMG xxxii (1878), 21–98);—m. (c. n.m.) שְׁנַיִם Am 3:3 +; cstr. שְׁנֵי Is 7:16 +, sf. שְׁנֵיהֶם Gn 2:25 +, etc.; f. (c. n.f.) שְׁתַּיִם Am 4:8 +; cstr. שְׁתֵּי Gn 4:19, וּשְׁתֵּי Is 7:21 +, etc., מִשְּׁתֵֿי Ju 16:28 (v. GFM); sfs. v. infr. (2 + 10 = 12, v. infr.); Hex chiefly P:—two:
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שני (shênîy) (H8145) — second.
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.
שָׁנִי
- (b. h.) scarlet; תולעת ש׳, v. תֹּולֵעָה.—Pl. שָׁנִים. Sabb. 89ᵇ (ref. to Is. I, 18) כשנים כשני מיבעי ליה וכ׳ kasshanim? it ought to read kasshani (as scarlet) &c.; Yalk. Is. 256; a. e., v. שָׁנָה II. e.g. Isaiah 1:18
שְׁנַיִם
- (b. h.) two. Ber. 8ᵃ ש׳ מקרא ואחד תרגום reading the Scriptural portion of the week twice, and the Targum once. Ib. שיעור ש׳ פתחים a distance of two gates. Zeb. V, 4, v. מַתָּנָה. Sabb. I, 1 ש׳ שהן ארבע two ways of transfer from place to place, which become four (by rabbinical addition). Ib. שְׁנֵיהֶם פטורין both of them are free. Snh. V, 3 בש׳ בחדש on the second day of the month. Ib. בש׳ שעות in the second hour of the day. Men. III, 3. Ib. 6; a. v. fr.—שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר, שְׁתֵּים עֶשְׂרֵה twelve. Nidd. 69ᵇ. Ab. Zar. 3ᵇ; 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 182 distinct written forms H8147 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; 122 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8147, 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
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 611 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 645 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 1:16
- Exodus 2:13
- Leviticus 3:4
- Numbers 1:35
- Deuteronomy 1:23
- Joshua 2:1
- Judges 3:16
- Ruth 1:1
- 1 Samuel 1:2
- 2 Samuel 1:1
- 1 Kings 2:5
- 2 Kings 1:14
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.