אָשֵׁם
guilty
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
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
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).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (67%)
- Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (33%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 3 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H818 appears — 3 distinct verses across 3 books. 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.
Genesis 1 verse
2 Samuel 1 verse
Ezra 1 verse
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, אשם (ʼâshêm) means “guilty.” It occurs a mere 3 verses across Scripture. The word gravitates to Genesis (33%), then 2 Samuel and Ezra. First canonically at Genesis 42:21, it enters the text early. It shares a root with אשם and אשם. 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 H818 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 →
- 3
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 3 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,179
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,179 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 3 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 3 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 33%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 33%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 33%
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: Being guilty 1×, Guilty 1×, One which is faulty 1×
- American Standard Version: Being guilty 1×, Guilty 1×, Is as one that is guilty 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Are being punished 1×, Does he not convict himself 1×, Guilt 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Are 1×, Being guilty ones 1×, Guilty 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H818 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H818 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H818 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H818 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
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 6 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.
Qal
- Pf. אָשַׁם Lv 5:19 Nu 5:7; אָשֵׁם Hb 1:11 + 7 times; אָֽשְׁמָה Nu 5:6; אָשָׁ֑מְתָּ Pr 30:10; אָשַׁמְתְּ Ez 22:4; אָשֵׁ֑מוּ Lv 4:13; Impf. יֶאְשַׁם Ho 4:15 + 13 times; Inf. abs. אָשֹׁם Lv 5:19; אָשׁוֹם Ez 25:12;— e.g. Leviticus 5:19
- 1. commit an offence, a trespass, do a wrong, or an injury, with לְ: אָשֹׁם אָשַׁם ליהוה he hath done a great wrong to Yahweh (in violating the commands) Lv 5:19 (P); וְנָתַן לַאֲשֶׁר אָשַׁם לוֹ and he shall give it (restitution) to him to whom he did wrong Nu 5:7 (P), cf. 2 Ch 19:10, 10; וַיֶּאְשְׁמוּ אָשׁוֹם and they committed lasting wrong (irreparable wrong, the Edomites against Judah) Ez 25:12. e.g. Leviticus 5:19
- 2. be or become guilty Ju 21:22 Je 50:7 Ho 4:15 Hb 1:11; in offences requiring sin-offering Lv 4:13, 22, 27 (P), of trespass-offering Lv 5:2, 3, 17, 23 Nu 5:6 (P); with ל guilty of Lv 5:4, 5 (P), with ב in or through Ez 22:4 Ho 13:1. e.g. Judges 21:22
- 3. be held guilty, bear punishment ψ 34:22, 23 Pr 30:10 Is 24:6 Je 2:3 Ho 5:15; 10:2; 14:1 Zc 11:5 Ez 6:6 (but cf. שָׁמֵם). e.g. Psalms 34:22
Niphal
- נֶאְשָׁמוּ suffer punishment Jo 1:18. (si vera l.; Me We al. נָשַׁמּוּ, √ שׁמם, cf. Drad loc). e.g. Joel 1:18
Hiphil
- Impf. sf. הַאֲשִׁימֵם declare them guilty ψ 5:11. e.g. Psalms 5:11
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
vb. offend, be guilty (Arabic أَثِمَ peccavit, إِثْمٌ offence, أَثَامٌ, إِثَامٌ, requital, fault, mulct, cf. Ethiopic ሕሠም:)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אשם (ʼâsham) (H816) — to trespass.
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.
אָשַׁם
- 1. to be waste (cmp. Ezek. VI, 6; Hos. XIV,. Snh. 97ᵃ יֶאֱשַׁם (in parall. passages יִשּׁוֹם); v. גַּבְלָן. e.g. Ezekiel 6:6
- 2. to neglect, be guilty.—Denom.:
אָשָׁם
- (b. h.) guilt; guilt-offering, asham, a special kind of offering.—א׳ תלוי (Lev. V, 18) an asham to be offered when you are in doubt as to the commission of a sinful act. Kerith. III, 1; a. fr.; (ib. 17ᵇ differ. opin. as to the nature of the doubt). Ib. VI, 3 אֲשַׁם חסידים the asham offered by the over-scrupulous because they may have transgressed.—א׳ ודאי the asham for the undoubted commission of certain offenses, which are: a) אֲ׳ גזילות for illegal appropriation of private property (after pecuniary reparation; Lev. V, 25); b) אֲ׳ מעילות for misappropriation of sacred property (Lev. V, 16); c) אֲ׳ שפחה חרופה for carnal connection with a slave betrothed to another man (Lev. XIX, 21);—d) אֲ׳ נזיר offering of a nazarite when interrupting the days of vowed nazaritism by levitical impurity (Num. VI, 12).—Deut. R. s. 1, beg. (alluding to וַאֲשִׂמֵם Deut. I, 13) וְאַשְׁמָם כתיב it is so written that you may read v’ashmam (and their guilt); if you listen not to them אשמה תלוי וכ׳ (read אשמם) their guilt shall fall upon your heads (you will be answerable for what offenses they may commit); differ. in Sifré Deut. 13. [Our Bible editions, however, read ואשימם, plene.]—Pl. אֲשָׁמוֹת. Kerith. VI, 4. Sifré l. c.; a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 5:18
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 H818 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֲשֵׁמִ֣ים | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Genesis 42:21 | 1 |
| וַ/אֲשֵׁמִ֥ים | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Ezra 10:19 | 1 |
| כְּ/אָשֵׁ֔ם | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Samuel 14:13 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H818, 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
Shares the same root
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 3 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 3 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.
