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 Construct-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 Judges — 20 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.
Judges
- Judges 3:16 שְׁנֵ֥י adj Cardinal number md cs Ehud made him a sword which had two edges, a cubit in length; and he girded it under his clothing on his right thigh.
- Judges 7:3 וּ/שְׁנַ֨יִם֙ conj + Adjective Cardinal number md Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead. There returned of the people twenty-two thousand; and there remained ten thousand.
- Judges 7:25 שְׁנֵֽי adj Cardinal number md cs They took the two princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; and they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the winepress of Zeeb, and pursued Midian: and they brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon beyond the Jordan.
- Judges 8:12 שְׁנֵ֣י adj Cardinal number md cs Zebah and Zalmunna fled; and he pursued after them; and he took the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and confused all the host.
- Judges 9:44 וּ/שְׁנֵ֣י conj + Adjective Cardinal number md cs Abimelech, and the companies that were with him, rushed forward, and stood in the entrance of the gate of the city: and the two companies rushed on all who were in the field, and struck them.
- Judges 10:3 וּ/שְׁתַּ֖יִם conj + Adjective Cardinal number fd After him arose Jair, the Gileadite; and he judged Israel twenty-two years.
- Judges 11:37 שְׁנַ֣יִם adj Cardinal number md She said to her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may depart and go down on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.
- Judges 11:38 שְׁנֵ֣י adj Cardinal number md cs He said, Go. He sent her away for two months: and she departed, she and her companions, and mourned her virginity on the mountains.
- Judges 11:39 שְׁנַ֣יִם adj Cardinal number md It happened at the end of two months, that she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she was a virgin. It was a custom in Israel,
- Judges 12:6 וּ/שְׁנַ֖יִם conj + Adjective Cardinal number md then said they to him, Say now Shibboleth; and he said Sibboleth; for he couldn't manage to pronounce it right: then they laid hold on him, and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. There fell at that time of Ephraim forty-two thousand.
- Judges 15:4 שְׁנֵ֥י adj Cardinal number md cs Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between every two tails.
- Judges 15:13 בִּ/שְׁנַ֨יִם֙ prep + Adjective Cardinal number md They spoke to him, saying, No; but we will bind you fast, and deliver you into their hand: but surely we will not kill you. They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
- Judges 16:3 וּ/בִ/שְׁתֵּ֣י conj + prep + Adjective Cardinal number fd cs Samson lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.
- Judges 16:28 מִ/שְּׁתֵ֥י prep + Adjective Cardinal number fd cs Samson called to Yahweh, and said, Lord Yahweh, remember me, Please, and strengthen me, Please, only this once, God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
- Judges 16:29 שְׁנֵ֣י adj Cardinal number md cs Samson took hold of the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and leaned on them, the one with his right hand, and the other with his left.
- Judges 19:6 שְׁנֵי/הֶ֛ם adj Cardinal number md cs + sfx pers 3mp So they sat down, and ate and drink, both of them together: and the young lady's father said to the man, Please be pleased to stay all night, and let your heart be merry.
- Judges 19:8 שְׁנֵי/הֶֽם adj Cardinal number md cs + sfx pers 3mp He arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart; and the young lady's father said, Please strengthen your heart and stay until the day declines; and they ate, both of them.
- Judges 19:29 לִ/שְׁנֵ֥ים prep + Adjective Cardinal number md When he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the borders of Israel.
- Judges 20:21 שְׁנַ֨יִם adj Cardinal number md The children of Benjamin came forth out of Gibeah, and destroyed down to the ground of the Israelites on that day Twenty-two thousand men.
- Judges 21:10 שְׁנֵים adj Cardinal number md The congregation sent there twelve thousand men of the most valiant, and commanded them, saying, Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones.
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.
