תַּחְתּוֹן
lower
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
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 6 times (46%)
- Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 5 times (38%)
- Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (15%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 13 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H8481 appears — 13 distinct verses across 6 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.
Joshua 2 verses
- Joshua 16:3 תַּחְתּ֖וֹן adj Adjective ms and it went down westward to the border of the Japhletites, to the border of Beth Horon the lower, even to Gezer; and the goings out of it were at the sea.
- Joshua 18:13 תַּחְתּֽוֹן adj Adjective ms The border passed along from there to Luz, to the side of Luz (the same is Bethel), southward; and the border went down to Ataroth Addar, by the mountain that lies on the south of Beth Horon the lower.
1 Kings 2 verses
- 1 Kings 6:6 הַ/תַּחְתֹּנָ֜ה ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fs The nethermost story was five cubits broad, and the middle was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad; for on the outside he made offsets [in the wall] of the house round about, that [the beams] should not have hold in the walls of the house.
- 1 Kings 9:17 תַּחְתּֽוֹן adj Adjective ms Solomon built Gezer, and Beth Horon the lower,
1 Chronicles 1 verse
2 Chronicles 1 verse
Isaiah 1 verse
Ezekiel 6 verses
- Ezekiel 40:18 הַ/תַּחְתּוֹנָֽה ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fs The pavement was by the side of the gates, answerable to the length of the gates, even the lower pavement.
- Ezekiel 40:19 הַ/תַּחְתּ֜וֹנָ/ה ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective ms + sfx h Then he measured the breadth from the forefront of the lower gate to the forefront of the inner court outside, one hundred cubits, [both] on the east and on the north.
- Ezekiel 41:7 הַ/תַּחְתּוֹנָ֛ה ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fs The side-chambers were broader as they encompassed [the house] higher and higher; for the encompassing of the house went higher and higher round about the house: therefore the breadth of the house [continued] upward; and so one went up [from] the lowest [chamber] to the highest by the middle [chamber].
- Ezekiel 42:5 מֵֽ/הַ/תַּחְתֹּנ֛וֹת prep + ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fp Now the upper chambers were shorter; for the galleries took away from these, more than from the lower and the middle, in the building.
- Ezekiel 42:6 מֵ/הַ/תַּחְתּוֹנ֛וֹת prep + ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fp For they were in three stories, and they didn't have pillars as the pillars of the courts: therefore [the uppermost] was straitened more than the lowest and the middle from the ground.
- Ezekiel 43:14 הַ/תַּחְתּוֹנָה֙ ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fs From the bottom on the ground to the lower ledge shall be two cubits, and the breadth one cubit; and from the lesser ledge to the greater ledge shall be four cubits, and the breadth a cubit.
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.
“lower” is the headline sense of the Hebrew adjective תחתון (tachtôwn). First canonically at Joshua 16:3, it enters the text early. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 13 verses — uncommon. More than a third of its appearances fall in Ezekiel. It shares a root with תחת, תחות and תחת. See the sense tree, 13-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8481 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 →
- 13
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 13 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,001
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,001 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 13 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 13 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 verses · 85%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 15%
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: Nether 5×, Lower 3×
- American Standard Version: Nether 5×, Lower 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Lower 9×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Lower 8×, Lowest 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8481 across 13 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 H8481 across 13 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H8481 across 13 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8481 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 1 sense 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.
- lower, lowest, nether
Word origin
adj. lower, lowest;—abs. תּ׳ Jos 16:3 +, fs. -תֹּנָה Is 22:9 +, fpl. -תֹּנֹת Ez 42:5, 6;—lower, Is 22:9 הַבְּרֵכָה הַתּ׳ the lower pool (in Jerus.), of pavement and gate of outer (lower) temple-court Ez 40:18, 19 (l. השּׁ׳ הַתַּחְתּוֹן), of lower ledge (עֲזָרְה) of altar, 43:14; of the lowest of the three stories of side-chambers surrounding the temple, 1 K 6:6 הַיָּצוּעַ הַתּ׳, + v 8a (v. תִּיכוֹן), Ez 41:7 (read וּמִן for וְכֵן), 42:5, 6; in place-name, בֵּית־חֹרוֹן תּ׳ Jos 16:3; 18:13; 1 K 9:17 (‖ 2 Ch 8:5 הַתּ׳), בֵּית־חֹרוֹן הַתּ׳ 1 Ch 7:24; 2 Ch 8:5.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from תחת (tachath) (H8478) — under.
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.
תַּחְתּוֹן
- (b. h.) same. Snh. VIII, 1 זקן הת׳, v. זָקָן.—Pl. תַּחְתּוֹנִים. Gen. R. s. 4 השמים הת׳ ושמי וכ׳ the lower heavens and the higher heavens of heavens. Ib. המים … על חת׳ וכ׳ the upper waters exceed the lower by &c.; a. fr.—Esp. הת׳ the lower creatures, earthly things, opp. to העליונים the heavenly things. Ib. s. 8 הריני בורא אותו מן העליונים ומן הת׳ I will create him (man) so that he should partake of the nature of the heavenly and of the earthly creatures; Lev. R. s. 9, v. עֶלְיוֹן. Tanḥ. Ḥuck. 8 העליונים ות׳ שלך הן וכ׳ the heavenly and the earthly creatures are of thy creation, and thou referrest to the authority of a human being?; a. fr.—Fem. תַּחְתּוֹנָה. Tosef. B. Bath. III, 2; Y. ib. XIV, 14ᶜ bot., v. רֵחַיִים; a. e.—על הת׳, v. יָד.—Pl. תַּחְתּוֹנוֹת. Sabb. 82ᵃ שיניו הת׳, v. שֵׁן; 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 11 distinct written forms H8481 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| הַ/תַּחְתּוֹנָֽה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 40:18 | 2 |
| תַּחְתּֽוֹן | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Kings 9:17 | 2 |
| הַ/תַּחְתּ֑וֹן | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 8:5 | 1 |
| הַ/תַּחְתּ֖וֹן | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Chronicles 7:24 | 1 |
| הַ/תַּחְתּ֜וֹנָ/ה | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 40:19 | 1 |
| הַ/תַּחְתֹּנָ֜ה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Kings 6:6 | 1 |
| הַ/תַּחְתּוֹנָ֛ה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 41:7 | 1 |
| הַ/תַּחְתּוֹנָה֙ | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 43:14 | 1 |
| מֵ/הַ/תַּחְתּוֹנ֛וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Ezekiel 42:6 | 1 |
| מֵֽ/הַ/תַּחְתֹּנ֛וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Ezekiel 42:5 | 1 |
| תַּחְתּ֖וֹן | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Joshua 16:3 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8481, 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 6 — 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 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 13 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.
