שָׁקַף
to look down
‘to look down’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
Form
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H8259 appears in the Book of Lamentations — 1 distinct verse. 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.
Lamentations
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.
“to look down” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb שקף (shâqaph). First canonically at Genesis 18:16, it enters the text early. It appears 22 verses across 14 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. The verb spans 2 stems, from Niphal to Hiphil. Related forms include משקוף, שקף and שקף. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8259 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 →
- 22
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 22 distinct verses.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,412
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,412 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 22 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 22 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 36%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 7 verses · 32%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 7 verses · 32%
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: Looked 4×, Looketh 3×, Look down 2×
- American Standard Version: Looketh 4×, Looked 3×, Looked out 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Looked down 6×, Looks down 4×, Looked out 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Looked down 7×, Looks down 4×, And 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8259 across 22 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 H8259 across 22 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 H8259 across 22 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8259 across 25 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
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 2 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.
Niphal
- . lean over (and look), look down
Hiphil
- . look down
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
[ שָׁקַף ] vb. Niph. Hiph. overhang, look out and down
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
סְקַף II
- (Saf. of נ־קף, v. נקף I) to bring close together, knock, clap. Targ. O. Num. XXIV, 10 ed. Lsb. (ed. Berl. a. oth. שקפ׳; Ms. I שפק׳).
- same. Targ. Job XXVII, 23 Ms. (ed. ישקוף; ed. Lag. a. oth. ישפיק).—V. שְׁקַף
שָׁקַף I
- to bend, arch.—Denom. שְׁקוֹף, מַשְׁקוֹף.
- [to be bent towards,] to look out; to face, be seen. Y. M. Kat. III, beg. 81ᶜ (in a riddle) משמים נִשְׁקָפָה she (the soul?) looks down from heaven. Num. R. s. 1926 (ref. to Num. XXI, 20) העומד … והוא הבאר הנִשְׁקָף וכ׳ he that stands on the face (plateau) of Jeshimon sees something in the sea (of Tiberias) …, and this is the well (of Miriam) which is seen from Jeshimon; (v. Lev. R. s. 22; Koh. R. to V, 8; Y. Kil. IX, 32ᶜ bot.). e.g. Numbers 21:20
- 1. to look, contemplate. Ber. 29ᵃ top ה׳ בה שתים וכ׳ he thought over it (trying to recall it) two or three minutes.
- 2. (denom. of שְׁקוֹף) to arch, curve, diminish the width of. Gen. R. s. 31 והיה מַשְׁקִיף בה ועולה וכ׳ and he curved it (the wall of the ark) as he went up &c., v. קַמְרוֹטוֹן; Yalk. ib. 54.
שָׁקַף II
- (Shaf. of נ־קף, cmp. סְקַף II) to bring in close contact, to knock. Ned. 55ᵃ (ref. to Num. XXI, 19) כיון שנחלו אל … ולא עוד אלא ששׁוֹקְפִין אותו בקרקע Ar. (ed. ששוקעין, corr. acc., v. Rashi a. l.) when God gives a man possession (of the Law), he rises to greatness; but if he raises himself, the Lord will lower him, and moreover, they will knock him down in the ground (play on ונשקפה Num. l. c. 20). e.g. Numbers 21:19
- to shut fast. Deut. R. s. 11 הַשְׁקֵף עיניך זה על גב זה וה׳ וכ׳ shut thy eyes, one (eyelid) upon the other. and he did &c.; (Yalk. ib. 940 הַשְׁכֵּב … והִשְׁכִּיב).
שְׁקַף
- 1. to knock, smite together, strike. Targ. O. Num. XXIV, 10, v. סְקַף II. Targ. Esth. VI, 1. Targ. Is. XXV, 4; a. e.
- 2. (of the wind) to knock about, blast, drive about (corresp. to h. שדף a. נדף).—Part. pass. שָׁקִיף, שְׁקִיף; f. שְׁקִיפָא; pl. שְׁקִיפִין; שְׁקִיפַן. Targ. O. Lev. XXVI, 36. Targ. Gen. XLI, 6; 23; 27; a. e.
- , Af. אַשְׁקֵיף
- 1. same. Targ. I Sam. II, 10 (h. text ירעם). Targ. Job XXXII, 13 (h. text ידפנו). Targ. Ps. I, 4; a. e.—Part. pass. מְשַׁקַּף or מַשְׁקַף. Ab. Zar. 28ᵇ דלא מ׳ Ms. M. (ed. מִשְּׁקִיף, Ithpe.) (wool) that has not been beaten (hatchelled).
- 2. (cmp. preced. Hif.) to shut.—Part. pass. as ab. Lev. R. s. 5 תרעא מ׳ וכ׳ (some ed. משקיף) she finds the door shut, and she opens it.
- to be knocked about, driven off (by the wind). Targ. Ps. LXVIII, 3 היכמא די שְׁקִיף … יִשְׁתּקְּפוּן (not ישקפון) as the smoke is driven, so shall they be driven.
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 19 distinct written forms H8259 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 H8259, 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 22 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 22 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 18:16
- Exodus 14:24
- Numbers 21:20
- Deuteronomy 26:15
- Judges 5:28
- 1 Samuel 13:18
- 2 Samuel 6:16
- 2 Kings 9:30
- 1 Chronicles 15:29
- Psalms 14:2
- Proverbs 7:6
- Song of Solomon 6:10
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.
