שְׁפֵלָה
valley
‘valley’ is one of 2 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
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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 19 times (95%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 1 time (5%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 20 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H8219 appears — 19 distinct verses across 9 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.
Deuteronomy 1 verse
Joshua 6 verses
- Joshua 9:1 וּ/בַ/שְּׁפֵלָ֗ה conj + prep det + n c fs It happened, when all the kings who were beyond the Jordan, in the hill-country, and in the lowland, and on all the shore of the great sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard of it;
- Joshua 10:40 וְ/הַ/שְּׁפֵלָ֜ה conj + ptcl def.art + n c fs So Joshua struck all the land, the hill-country, and the South, and the lowland, and the slopes, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but he utterly destroyed all that breathed, as Yahweh, the God of Israel, commanded.
- Joshua 11:2 וּ/בַ/שְּׁפֵלָ֑ה conj + prep det + n c fs and to the kings who were on the north, in the hill-country, and in the Arabah south of Chinneroth, and in the lowland, and in the heights of Dor on the west,
- Joshua 11:16 הַ/שְּׁפֵלָ֖ה וּ/שְׁפֵלָתֹֽ/ה ptcl def.art + n c fs conj + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms So Joshua took all that land, the hill-country, and all the South, and all the land of Goshen, and the lowland, and the Arabah, and the hill-country of Israel, and the lowland of the same;
- Joshua 12:8 וּ/בַ/שְּׁפֵלָ֗ה conj + prep det + n c fs in the hill-country, and in the lowland, and in the Arabah, and in the slopes, and in the wilderness, and in the South; the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:
- Joshua 15:33 בַּ/שְּׁפֵלָ֑ה prep det + n c fs In the lowland, Eshtaol, and Zorah, and Ashnah,
Judges 1 verse
1 Kings 1 verse
1 Chronicles 1 verse
2 Chronicles 4 verses
- 2 Chronicles 1:15 בַּ/שְּׁפֵלָ֖ה prep det + n c fs The king made silver and gold to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore trees that are in the lowland, for abundance.
- 2 Chronicles 9:27 בַּ/שְּׁפֵלָ֖ה prep det + n c fs The king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore trees that are in the lowland, for abundance.
- 2 Chronicles 26:10 וּ/בַ/שְּׁפֵלָ֖ה conj + prep det + n c fs He built towers in the wilderness, and hewed out many cisterns, for he had much cattle; in the lowland also, and in the plain: [and he had] farmers and vineyard keepers in the mountains and in the fruitful fields; for he loved farming.
- 2 Chronicles 28:18 הַ/שְּׁפֵלָ֣ה ptcl def.art + n c fs The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the lowland, and of the South of Judah, and had taken Beth-shemesh, and Aijalon, and Gederoth, and Soco with the towns of it, and Timnah with the towns of it, Gimzo also and the towns of it: and they lived there.
Jeremiah 3 verses
- Jeremiah 17:26 הַ/שְּׁפֵלָ֤ה ptcl def.art + n c fs They shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the lowland, and from the hill-country, and from the South, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meal-offerings, and frankincense, and bringing [sacrifices of] thanksgiving, to the house of Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 32:44 הַ/שְּׁפֵלָ֖ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds, and seal them, and call witnesses, in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the hill-country, and in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South: for I will cause their captivity to return, says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 33:13 הַ/שְּׁפֵלָה֙ ptcl def.art + n c fs In the cities of the hill-country, in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him who numbers them, says Yahweh.
Obadiah 1 verse
Zechariah 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.
The Hebrew noun שפלה centers on the idea of “valley.” Where the King James Version says “valley,” newer translations reach for “foothills” (Berean Standard Bible) and “lowland” (unfoldingWord Literal Text); the renderings breakdown has the detail. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 19 verses — uncommon. Joshua dominates its distribution — 6 of 19 verses. Lexicons map it across 2 senses. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8219 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 →
- 19
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 19 distinct verses.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,513
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,513 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 19 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Joshua 6 verses 32%
- 2 Chronicles 4 verses 21%
- Jeremiah 3 verses 16%
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 19 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 13 verses · 68%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 26%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 5%
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: Valley 6×, Vale 3×, Are in the vale 2×
- American Standard Version: Lowland 14×, Are in the lowland 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Foothills 20×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Lowland 6×, Shephelah 4×, Lowlands 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8219 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8219 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H8219 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8219 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 2 senses 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.
- lowland, valley
- lowland
Word origin
Derived from שפל (shâphêl) (H8213) — to humble.
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.
שְׁפֵלָה
- preced. wds.) lowland. Shebi. IX, 2 וביהודה ההר הש׳ וכ׳ in Judæa, (the three districts are) the highland, the lowland, and the valley; ושְׁפֵלַת לוד כשפלת הדרום and the lowland of Lydda is (with reference to Sabbatical year laws) like the lowland of Darom (South). Tosef. ib. VII, 10; Y. ib. IX, 38ᵈ bot. שָׁפֵל ושְׁפֵלָתוֹ (not שפלה), v. עֵמֶק. Ib. מאמאוס עד לוד ש׳ from Emmaus to Lydda is the plain (of Judæa). Ib. לש׳ וכ׳ (סימן) the presence of sycamores indicates lowland; Pes. 53ᵃ; a. fr.
שְׁפָלָה
- , v. שָׁפָל
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 16 distinct written forms H8219 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8219, 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
- שפל shᵉphal H8214 to humble
- שפל shephel H8216 lowliness
- שפל shâphâl H8217 humble
- שפלות shiphlûwth H8220 idleness
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 6 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 18 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 19 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
- Deuteronomy 1:7
- Joshua 9:1
- Judges 1:9
- 1 Kings 10:27
- 1 Chronicles 27:28
- 2 Chronicles 1:15
- Jeremiah 17:26
- Obadiah 1:19
- Zechariah 7:7
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.
