תַּבְנִית
pattern
also: plan, form, construction, figure 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
- 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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 19 times (95%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 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 H8403 appears — 17 distinct verses across 8 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.
Exodus 2 verses
- Exodus 25:9 תַּבְנִ֣ית תַּבְנִ֣ית n c fs cs n c fs cs According to all that I show you, the pattern of the tent, and the pattern of all of its furniture, even so you shall make it.
- Exodus 25:40 בְּ/תַ֨בְנִיתָ֔/ם prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp See that you make them after their pattern, which has been shown to you on the mountain.
Deuteronomy 3 verses
- Deuteronomy 4:16 תַּבְנִ֥ית n c fs cs Lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself an engraved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
- Deuteronomy 4:17 תַּבְנִ֕ית תַּבְנִית֙ n c fs cs n c fs cs the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,
- Deuteronomy 4:18 תַּבְנִ֕ית תַּבְנִ֛ית n c fs cs n c fs cs the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth;
Joshua 1 verse
2 Kings 1 verse
1 Chronicles 4 verses
- 1 Chronicles 28:11 תַּבְנִ֣ית n c fs cs Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch [of the temple], and of the houses of it, and of the treasuries of it, and of the upper rooms of it, and of the inner chambers of it, and of the place of the mercy seat;
- 1 Chronicles 28:12 וְ/תַבְנִ֗ית conj + n c fs cs and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, for the courts of the house of Yahweh, and for all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the house of God, and for the treasuries of the dedicated things;
- 1 Chronicles 28:18 וּ/לְ/תַבְנִ֣ית conj + prep + n c fs cs and for the altar of incense refined gold by weight; and gold for the pattern of the chariot, [even] the cherubim, that spread out [their wings], and covered the ark of the covenant of Yahweh.
- 1 Chronicles 28:19 הַ/תַּבְנִֽית ptcl def.art + n c fs All this, [said David], have I been made to understand in writing from the hand of Yahweh, even all the works of this pattern.
Psalms 2 verses
Isaiah 1 verse
Ezekiel 3 verses
- Ezekiel 8:3 תַּבְנִ֣ית n c fs cs He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner [court] that looks toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.
- Ezekiel 8:10 תַּבְנִ֜ית n c fs cs So I went in and saw; and see, every form of creeping things, and abominable animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed on the wall round about.
- Ezekiel 10:8 תַּבְנִית֙ n c fs cs There appeared in the cherubim the form of a man's hand under their wings.
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.
תבנית (tabnîyth) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “pattern.” Its English rendering has broadened — “pattern” classically, “likeness of” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 17 verses in 8 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Exodus 25:9. It also covers “plan”, “form”, and “construction”, alongside “pattern” — see its full sense range. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8403 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 →
- 17
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 17 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 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 17 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Chronicles 4 verses 24%
- Deuteronomy 3 verses 18%
- Ezekiel 3 verses 18%
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 17 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 6 verses · 35%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 35%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 5 verses · 29%
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: Pattern 7×, Likeness 5×, Form 2×
- American Standard Version: Pattern 7×, Likeness 6×, Form 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Plans 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Likeness of 6×, Pattern of 3×, Plan of 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8403 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H8403 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H8403 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 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 4 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8403 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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
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 3 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. app. originally construction, structure, yet only P & late: תַּבְנִית מִזְבַּח י׳ Jos 22:28; cf. ψ 144:12 in sim. בְּנוֹתֵינוּ כִזָוִיּוֹת מְחֻטָּבוֹת תּ׳ הֵיכָל carved according to the construction of a palace, palace-fashion. e.g. Joshua 22:28
- 2. pattern, according to which anything is to be constructed (P & late), of tabernacle Ex 25:9, utensils of tab. v 9, 40; an alter 2 K 16:10 תַּבְנִיתוֹ לְכָל־מַעֲשֵׂהוּ (disting. from דְּמוּת); temple 1 Ch 28:11 cf. v 12; chariot, i.e. cherubim 1 Ch 28:18; מַלְאֲכוֹת הַתּ׳ 1 Ch 28:19 i.e. objects of which the pattern is given. e.g. Exodus 25:9
- 3. figure, image, Hex only D, of idols in form of animals Dt 4:16, 17(×2), 18(×2); elsewhere late Is 44:13 Ez 8:10 (del. B Co) ψ 106:20; cf. תּ׳ יָד Ez 8:3; 10:8 i.e. something like a hand. e.g. Deuteronomy 4:16
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
n.f. construction, pattern, figure—תּ׳ abs. 1 Ch 28:19; cstr. Ex 25:9(×2) + 14 times + Ez 8:10 (del. Co); תַּבְנִיתוֹ 2 K 16:10, תַּבְנִיתָם Ex 25:40;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from בנה (bânâh) (H1129) — to build.
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.
תַּבְנִית
- build, shape, model. Tosef. Sabb. XI, (XII), 8 המקרע … כת׳ הכתב he who traces something like the shape of writing on a hide; Y. ib. XII, 13ᵈ, v. רָשַׁם. Keth. 8ᵃ אשר יצר … בצלמו בצלם דמות תַּבְנִיתוֹ who created man in his image, in the image of the likeness of his form; a. e.
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 14 distinct written forms H8403 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 H8403, 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
- אבן ʼeben H68 stone
- בית bayith H1004 house
- בן bên H1121 son
- בנא bᵉnâʼ H1124 to build
- בניה binyâh H1140 building
- בנין binyân H1146 building
- בת bath H1323 daughter
- מבנה mibneh H4011 building
- תבן teben H8401 stubble
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- בנוי Binnûwy H1131 Binnui
- בני Bânîy H1137 Bani
- בני Bunnîy H1138 Bunni
- בניה Bᵉnâyâh H1141 Benaiah
- יבנאל Yabnᵉʼêl H2995 Jabneel
- יבנה Yabneh H2996 Jabneh
- יבניה Yibnᵉyâh H2997 Ibneiah
- יבניה Yibnîyâh H2998 Ibnijah
- מבני Mᵉbunnay H4012 Mebunnai
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 20 — not the complete family. 9 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 17 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 17 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
- Exodus 25:9
- Deuteronomy 4:16
- Joshua 22:28
- 2 Kings 16:10
- 1 Chronicles 28:11
- Psalms 106:20
- Isaiah 44:13
- Ezekiel 8:3
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.
