תְּחִלָּה
beginning
‘beginning’ is one of 3 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
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.
- 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 12 times (52%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 11 times (48%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 23 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H8462 appears — 21 distinct verses across 13 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 4 verses
- Genesis 13:3 בַּ/תְּחִלָּ֔ה prep det + n c fs He went on his journeys from the South even to Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
- Genesis 41:21 בַּ/תְּחִלָּ֑ה prep det + n c fs and when they had eaten them up, it couldn't be known that they had eaten them, but they were still ill-favored, as at the beginning. So I awoke.
- Genesis 43:18 בַּ/תְּחִלָּ֔ה prep det + n c fs The men were afraid, because they were brought to Joseph's house; and they said, "Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall on us, and take us for bondservants, along with our donkeys."
- Genesis 43:20 בַּ/תְּחִלָּ֖ה prep det + n c fs and said, "Oh, my lord, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food:
Judges 2 verses
- Judges 1:1 בַּ/תְּחִלָּ֖ה prep det + n c fs It happened after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel asked of Yahweh, saying, Who shall go up for us first against the Canaanites, to fight against them?
- Judges 20:18 בַ/תְּחִלָּ֔ה בַ/תְּחִלָּֽה prep det + n c fs prep det + n c fs The children of Israel arose, and went up to Bethel, and asked counsel of God; and they said, Who shall go up for us first to battle against the children of Benjamin? Yahweh said, Judah [shall go up] first.
Ruth 1 verse
2 Samuel 3 verses
- 2 Samuel 17:9 בַּ/תְּחִלָּ֔ה prep det + n c fs Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or in some [other] place: and it will happen, when some of them are fallen at the first, that whoever hears it will say, There is a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom.
- 2 Samuel 21:9 תחלת בִּ/תְחִלַּ֖ת n c fs cs prep + n c fs cs He delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the mountain before Yahweh, and they fell [all] seven together. They were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.
- 2 Samuel 21:10 מִ/תְּחִלַּ֣ת prep + n c fs cs Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water was poured on them from the sky; and she allowed neither the birds of the sky to rest on them by day, nor the animals of the field by night.
2 Kings 1 verse
Ezra 1 verse
Nehemiah 1 verse
Proverbs 1 verse
Ecclesiastes 1 verse
Isaiah 1 verse
Daniel 3 verses
- Daniel 8:1 בַּ/תְּחִלָּֽה prep det + n c fs In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, even to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first.
- Daniel 9:21 בַּ/תְּחִלָּה֙ prep det + n c fs yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening offering.
- Daniel 9:23 בִּ/תְחִלַּ֨ת prep + n c fs cs At the beginning of your petitions the commandment went forth, and I am come to tell you; for you are greatly beloved: therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision.
Hosea 1 verse
Amos 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 תחלה centers on the idea of “beginning.” Where the King James Version says “beginning,” newer translations reach for “beginning of” (unfoldingWord Literal Text); the renderings breakdown has the detail. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 21 verses — uncommon. First canonically at Genesis 13:3, it enters the text early. Lexicons map it across 3 senses. Dig into 21-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8462 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 →
- 21
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 21 distinct verses.
- 13 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 13 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,368
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,368 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 21 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 21 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 9 verses · 43%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 38%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 4 verses · 19%
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: Beginning 11×, First 4×, First time 2×
- American Standard Version: Beginning 10×, First 4×, First time 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Beginning 7×, First 4×, Earlier 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Beginning of 9×, Beginning 6×, First 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8462 across 22 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 H8462 across 22 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H8462 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8462 across 24 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 3 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.
- beginning, first
- the first time
- from the beginning, in the beginning (with preposition)
Word origin
Derived from חלל (châlal) (H2490) — to profane.
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.
תְּחִלָּה
- חָלַל Hif.) beginning, start, first stage. Naz. 31ᵃ תְּחִילַּת הקדש the primary stage of consecration, i.e. the consecrated object itself, opp. סוף הקדש the secondary consecration, i.e. the exchange. B. Bath. 128ᵃ שתְּחִילָּתוֹ וכ׳, v. פַּסְלוּת; a. v. fr.—Esp. (sub. לטומאה) first degree of uncleanness (v. רִאשֹׁון). Zab. V, 1 מטמא … להיות ת׳ makes eatables and liquors unclean in the first degree, opp. שְׁנִיֹּות. Yad. III, 1 הידים ת׳ בכל מקום hands (touching an unclean object) become unclean in the first degree under all conditions. Tosef. Toh. II, 4. Ib. I, 4 ת׳ לקודש is unclean in the first degree with regard to consecrated things (sacrificial meat &c.); a. fr.—Pl. תְּחִלֹּות, תְּחִי׳. Yad. l. c.; Ḥull. 33ᵇ; a. fr.—בַּתְּחִלָּה, or ת׳ in the beginning, before, first. Ber. II, 2 עול … ת׳, v. עוֹל. Ib. 37ᵃ מברך עליו ת׳ וסוף he must say the benediction over it before and after eating. Ib. בת׳ מברך עליו וכ׳ before eating he must say &c.; a. fr.—מִתְּ׳ from the beginning, originally, in olden times. Pes. 116ᵃ מת׳ עובדי וכ׳ our forefathers in olden times were idolaters; a. e.—לְכַתְּ׳, לְכִתְ׳ a) in the start, directly, opp. דִּיעֲבַד. Ḥull. 2ᵃ, v. דִּיעֲבַד. Erub. 34ᵇ פוחת לכת׳ ונוטל he may directly dig out, and take; Bets. IV, 3, v. פָּחַת; a. fr.—b) at first. Gen. R. s. 49; a. fr.
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 H8462 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 H8462, 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
- חל chôl H2455 profane
- חלה challâh H2471 cake
- חליל châlîyl H2485 flute
- חלל châlâl H2491 slain
- מחלה mᵉchillâh H4247 hole
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 8 — 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 20 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 21 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 13:3
- Judges 1:1
- Ruth 1:22
- 2 Samuel 17:9
- 2 Kings 17:25
- Ezra 4:6
- Proverbs 9:10
- Ecclesiastes 10:13
- Isaiah 1:26
- Daniel 8:1
- Hosea 1:2
- Amos 7:1
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.
