תְּמוֹל
formerly
‘formerly’ is one of 4 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
- Adverb
- A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
Every verse where H8543 appears in the Book of Deuteronomy — 3 distinct verses. 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.
Deuteronomy
- Deuteronomy 4:42 מִ/תְּמ֣וֹל prep + adv that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unawares, and didn't hate him in time past; and that fleeing to one of these cities he might live:
- Deuteronomy 19:4 מִ/תְּמֹ֥ל prep + adv This is the case of the manslayer, that shall flee there and live: whoever kills his neighbor unawares, and didn't hate him in time past;
- Deuteronomy 19:6 מִ/תְּמ֥וֹל prep + adv lest the avenger of blood pursue the manslayer, while his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him mortally; whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he didn't hate him in time past.
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.
“formerly” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb תמול (tᵉmôwl). Carrying more than one sense, it rewards its full sense range. With 22 verses in 10 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Exodus, which alone accounts for 27% of its uses. Scripture first uses it in Genesis 31:2. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8543 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.
- 10 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 10 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 22 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Exodus 6 verses 27%
- Deuteronomy 3 verses 14%
- Joshua 3 verses 14%
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.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 11 verses · 50%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 8 verses · 36%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 14%
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: Heretofore 2×, Time 2×, Time past 2×
- American Standard Version: Time 3×, Heretofore 2×, Time past 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Before 4×, Yesterday 4×, Past 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Yesterday 16×, Past 2×, Previous 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8543 across 18 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 5 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8543 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 H8543 across 16 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 6 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8543 across 23 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 6 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. 2 S 15:20 תְּמוֹל בּוֹאֲךָ yesterday (= only lately) was thy coming, Jb 8:9 תמול אנחנו (of) yesterday (Ges§141d) are we, ψ 90:4 (genit.) כְּיוֹם אֶתְמוֹל. e.g. 2 Samuel 15:20
- 2. usually in combin. with שִׁלְשֹׁם yesterday (and) the third day, to express the idea of formerly: thus
- a. as adv. acc. (a) גַּם תְּמוֹל גַּם הַיּוֹם 1 S 20:27 (lit.), cf. Ex 5:14 (sub b); (b) תְּמוֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם Ex 5:8; Ru 2:11, so אֶתְמ׳ שׁ׳ 1 S 4:7; (c) גַּם ת׳ גַּם שׁ׳ 2 S 3:17; 1 Ch 11:2 (‖ 2 S 5:2 with אֶתְמ׳). e.g. 1 Samuel 20:27
- b. כִּתְמוֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם as formerly Gn 31:2, 5; Ex 5:7; Jos 4:18; 1 S 21:6 (but Bu מִתְּ׳, as c), 2 K 13:5; כְּאֶתְמ׳ שׁ׳ 1 S 14:21; 19:7; Ex 5:14 כִּת׳ שׁ׳ גַּם תְּמוֹל גַּם הַיּוֹם as yesterday (and) the third day (= as formerly), both yesterday and to-day (= so more recently). e.g. Genesis 31:2
- c. מִתְּמוֹל שׁ׳ = (from) aforetime, Ex 21:29, 36; Jos 3:4, וְהוּא לֹא שׂנֵא לוֹ מִתְּ׳ שׁ׳ Dt 4:42; 19:4, 6; Jos 20:5; so מֵאִתְּמוֹל שׁ׳ 1 S 10:11; גַּם מִתְּ׳ גַּם מִשּׁ׳ Ex 4:10. e.g. Exodus 21:29
- 3. מֵאֶתְמוּל (alone) Is 30:33 from yesterday = already; וְאֶתְמוּל עַמִּי Mi 2:8 corrupt, read וְאַתֶּם לְעַמִּי (WRS, with יָקוּם; עַל עַמִּי We Now, with תָּקוּמוּ), and v. שַׂלְמָה. e.g. Isaiah 30:33
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
(תְּמֹל)23, אֶתְמוֹל5, אִתְּמוֹל † 1 S 10:11, אֶתְמוּל †Is 30:33; Mi 2:8 (v. inf.), subst., used sometimes as adv.acc., yesterday, fig. recently, formerly (Aramaic אִתְּמָלֵי, תְּמָלֵי, sometimes אִתְּמוֹל, ܬܡܳܠ, ܐܶܬܡܳܠ, ܐܶܬܡܳܠܝ; Mand. עתמאל NöM 202; Ethiopic ትማልም Assyrian timâli, itimâli, ina timâli (Dl158, 721); der. dub.; according to MeGr Syriac 118 Köii 264 f. from Arabic مَلَا ii. prolongavit, iv. longam vitam concessit, مَلًا tempus, المَلَوَانِ the two times, i.e. night and day, in form an inf. of vi. تَمَالٍ; hence proposes long time, (past) time, specialized to yesterday);—yesterday, but usually fig. = recently or formerly:
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אתמול (ʼethmôwl) (H865) — yesterday.
Forms in the corpus
The 15 distinct written forms H8543 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| כִּ/תְמ֣וֹל | Adverb | Exodus 5:7 | 3 |
| מִ/תְּמ֥וֹל | Adverb | Deuteronomy 19:6 | 3 |
| כִּ/תְמ֥וֹל | Adverb | Genesis 31:2 | 2 |
| מִ/תְּמ֣וֹל | Adverb | Deuteronomy 4:42 | 2 |
| תְּמ֣וֹל | Adverb | 1 Chronicles 11:2 | 2 |
| תְּמ֥וֹל | Adverb | 1 Samuel 20:27 | 2 |
| כִ/תְמוֹל | Adverb | Joshua 4:18 | 1 |
| כִּ/תְמֹ֣ל | Adverb | Genesis 31:5 | 1 |
| מִ/תְּמֹ֣ל | Adverb | Exodus 21:29 | 1 |
| מִ/תְּמֹ֥ל | Adverb | Deuteronomy 19:4 | 1 |
| מִ/תְּמוֹל֙ | Adverb | Exodus 4:10 | 1 |
| תְמ֣וֹל | Adverb | Job 8:9 | 1 |
| תְּמ֖וֹל | Adverb | Exodus 5:14 | 1 |
| תְּמ֤וֹל | Adverb | Exodus 5:8 | 1 |
| תְּמוֹל֙ | Adverb | 2 Samuel 3:17 | 1 |
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 31:2
- Exodus 4:10
- Deuteronomy 4:42
- Joshua 3:4
- Ruth 2:11
- 1 Samuel 20:27
- 2 Samuel 3:17
- 2 Kings 13:5
- 1 Chronicles 11:2
- Job 8:9
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.
