תֶּ֫בֶל
perversion
‘perversion’ is one of 2 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
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
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.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H8397 appears — 2 distinct verses across 1 book. 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.
Leviticus 2 verses
- Leviticus 18:23 תֶּ֥בֶל n c ms "'You shall not lie with any animal to defile yourself with it; neither shall any woman give herself to an animal, to lie down with it: it is a perversion.
- Leviticus 20:12 תֶּ֥בֶל n c ms "'If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death: they have committed a perversion; their blood shall be upon them.
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.
תבל (tebel) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “perversion.” The Hebrew Bible uses it only 2 verses. Leviticus dominates its distribution — 2 of 2 verses. Scripture first uses it in Leviticus 18:23. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8397 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 →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,807
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,807 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 2 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Leviticus 2 verses 100%
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 2 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 100%
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: Confusion 1×, Thereto it is confusion 1×
- American Standard Version: Confusion 1×, Thereto 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Is a perversion 1×, Perversely 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Is perversion 1×, Perversion 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8397 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8397 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H8397 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8397 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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.
- confusion (violation of nature or divine order)
- perversion (in sexual sin)
Word origin
n.[m.] confusion, violation of nature, or the divine order—Lv 18:23; 20:12 (H) cf. Di on 18:15.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from בלל (bâlal) (H1101) — to mix.
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.
תָּבַל
- , Pi. תִּבֵּל
- 1. (denom. of תֶּבֶל) to mix; to spice, season. Men. 23ᵇ תִּיבְּלָהּ בקצח וכ׳ if he seasoned it (the unleavened bread) with cumin &c. Ib. 21ᵃ יכול יְתַבְּלֶנּוּ כתבן בטיט Ms. M. a. Ar. (ed. יתבוננו) you may think (that t’bon’nennu means,) that he must mix it with salt as straw is mixed with clay; Yalk. Lev. 454 (not בתבן וטיט); v. בִּין. Orl. II, 4 כל המחמץ והמְתַבֵּל וכ׳ whosoever leavens, or seasons, or mixes with T’rumah &c. Ib. 15 תבלין … לא באלו כדי לתַבֵּל … ונצטרפו ותִבְּלוּ if spices of T’rumah and of mixed seeds get into a pot, neither being sufficient to season the dish, but seasoning it in combination. Y. Maas. Sh. II, 53ᶜ top a dish of second tithes שתִּיבְּלוֹ וכ׳ which one seasoned with spices of a profane character; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְתוּבָּל; f. מְתוּבֶּלֶת &c. Y. Pes. X, 37ᶜ מבושל כמ׳ (ed. כדי תבל, כתיתבל, corr. acc.) boiled wine is in ritual law like spiced wine. Tosef. Pes. I (II), 33 מצה המת׳ וכ׳ spiced Matsah; a. e.—Trnsf. to improve, refine. Gen. R. s. 23; Yalk. ib. 38 (play on תובל קין) ת׳ עבודתו של קין וכ׳ (Gen. R. עבירתו) he refined Cain’s work (sin); Cain killed without any tool &c.
- 2. (v. תֵּבֵל) to make rich of growth.—Part. pass. as ab. Sifré Deut. 37; Yalk. Prov. 943, v. תֵּבֵל.
- 1. to be mixed, seasoned. Tosef. Pes. l. c. בין שנִתַּבְּלָה וכ׳ (ed. Zuck. שתִּיבְּלָהּ) whether it was seasoned in a stew-dish or in a pot.
- 2. (denom. of תֶּבֶל 2) to defile one’s self. Yalk. Gen. 47 (ref. to הוחל, Gen. IV, 26, and play on תובל) חזרו מִתַּבְּלִין בכל כעס וכ׳ they turned and denied themselves with all kind of provocation (sins), as we read, Tubal Cain &c.; שחזרו להִתַּבֵּל בזנות וכ׳ they turned to defile themselves with voluptuousness, as we read (Lev. XX, 12) tebel ʿasu e.g. Genesis 4:26
תְּבַל
- , Pa. תַּבֵּל same, to spice, season. Ḥull. 112ᵃ מְתַבֵּל, v. תַּבְלָא I.
תֵּבֵל
- , v. Ges. Thes. s. v.) world. Sifré Deut. 37 (ref. to Prov. VIII, 26) ת׳ זו ארץ ישראל … שהיא מתובלת בכל tebel means Palestine, and why is it called tebel? Because it is rich in every thing; Yalk. Prov. 943 (ref. to Prov. VIII, 31) ת׳ זו ארצו … שהיא מתובלת מכל ארצות tebel means his (God’s) land, because it is richer than all other lands; ib. ת׳ שהיא מתובלת בפירותיה tebel, because it (the earth) is flavored with its fruits. Gen. R. s. 13 תבל … שמתבלת וכ׳ the earth is called tebel corresponding to the period of Tammuz (midsummer) which lends savor to its fruits; Yalk. ib. 20. e.g. Proverbs 8:26
תֵּבֵל ²
- Targ. Ps. XVIII, 16. Ib. XC, 2. Targ. Prov. VIII, 26; 31; a. fr.
תֶּבֶל
- (בָּלַל)
- 1. mixture, spice, seasoning. Y. Orl. I, 61ᵇ top אין ת׳ ביותר וכ׳ spices have no seasoning effect in a mixture larger than two hundred times their quantity. Arakh. II, 6 כדי ליתן ת׳ בנעימה in order to put spice (sweetness) in the melody (to raise the effect of the melody through the accompaniment of young voices). Yalk. Prov. 943 (ref. to תֵּבֵל, Prov. VIII, 31) Palestine is called tebel על שם ת׳ שבתוכה וכ׳ for the spice which is in it, and what is this? The Law; Sifré Deut. 37 תבלין, v. infra.—Pl. תְּבָלִין, (tradit. pronunc.) תַּבְלִין. Orl. II, 10 ת׳ שנים וכ׳ spices of two or three different legal categories, of one kind or of three. Ib. 15, v. תָּבַל. Kel. II, 7, a. e. בית ת׳ spice box. Y. Pes. X, 37ᵈ top תַּבְלֵי מצוה; Bab. Pes. 116ᵃ תֹבלין למצוה spices for the Passover ceremony (חֲרוֹסֶת); a. fr.—Also used as sing. Sabb. 119ᵃ ת׳ אחד יש לנו וכ׳ we have a certain spice the name of which is Sabbath &c. B. Bath. 16ᵃ הקב"ה … תורה ת׳ the Lord created the evil inclination (in man), and he created the Law with which to season (temper) it; Kidd. 30ᵇ. Sifré Deut. 37, v. supra; a. e.—Ned. 51ᵃ (play on תבל, Lev. XVIII, 23) ת׳ הוא ת׳ יש בה וכ׳ is it a spice? is there any spice (additional gratification) in it? &c.—[ e.g. Proverbs 8:31
- 2. (b. h.)confusion, unnatural act, defilement, v. supra, a. תָּבַל.]—[Y. Shebu. III, 34ᶜ top מן התבל, read: הטֶבֶל.]
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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8397, 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
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 2 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 2 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.
