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אַתָּ֫ה

you

H859 Strong's Hebrew
ʼattâh Transliteration
/at-taw'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 1,104 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

אתה — transliterated ʼattâh — is a Hebrew word carrying the sense “you.” The King James Version usually renders it “thou,” while modern versions prefer “you” (Berean Standard Bible) — see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 997 verses in 39 books, it ranks among the most common words of the Hebrew Bible. Debuting at Genesis 3:11, it then recurs through the corpus. From the same root come אנתה. See the sense tree, 997-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
thee
Modern gloss
you
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H859 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 →

997
distinct verses
The word appears in 997 distinct verses.
39 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 39 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 3:11
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 3:11.
Malachi 3:12
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Malachi 3:12.
#34
by frequency
Top 50 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 34 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 997 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 241 · 24%
  • Historical 332 · 33%
  • Wisdom 142 · 14%
  • Prophets 282 · 28%

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 997 distinct verses.

  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 517 verses · 52%
  • Torah (Pentateuch) 241 verses · 24%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 239 verses · 24%

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).

BDB lists this Strong’s number as 7 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.

  • King James Version: Thou 5×, Ye 3×
  • American Standard Version: Thou 4×, Ye 3×
  • Berean Standard Bible: You 800×, Are you 49×, Do you 21×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: You 833×, Yourself 46×, Are you 42×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H859 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Thou” 5×
  • “Ye” 3×

Plus 3 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 H859 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Thou” 4×
  • “Ye” 3×

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 H859 across 1,022 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “You” 800×
  • “Are you” 49×
  • “Do you” 21×
  • “You are” 17×
  • “May you” 14×
  • “Will you” 9×
  • “You yourself” 8×
  • “Have you” 7×
  • “Now you” 6×
  • “Yourself” 5×
  • “Yourselves” 5×
  • “Are you from” 4×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 34 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 67 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H859 across 1,122 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “You” 833×
  • “Yourself” 46×
  • “Are you” 42×
  • “Are” 36×
  • “Yourselves” 31×
  • “You are” 25×
  • “And” 20×
  • “Now you” 11×
  • “You all” 11×
  • “But” 10×
  • “Then” 5×
  • “Will you” 4×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 35 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 0 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.

אתה I (so regularly

אתה II on. 2 s. f. thou (fem.) (shortened from אַתִּי (q.v.)

אתה III on. 2 m.pl. you (masc.) (for antem, v. supr.) Gn 9

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

I. (so regularly; but 26–7 times, with different disj. accents, אַ֑תָּה: v. FrMM 228; Sta§ 178 a (read 8 for 18) pron. 2 s. m. thou (for anta, v. supr.; cf. נָתַתָּ for נָתַנְתָּ) Gn 3:11, 19 + often. Written אַתָּ †1 S 24:18 ψ 6:4; Jb 1:10; Ec 7:22; Ne 9:6. Appended to a vb. for emph., Ex 18:19(×2) 1 S 17:56 שְׁאַל אַתָּה inquire thou, 20:8; 22:18; Is 43:26 סַפֵּר אַתָּה. Added for the purpose of strengthening a gen. or accus. sf. 1 K 21:19; Pr 22:19 (Ges§ 135, 2).

I. pron. 2 s. f. thou (fem.) (shortened from אַתִּי (q.v.); in Syriac the two genders are written differently, ܐܰܢ̱ܬ݀, ܐܰܢ̱ܬ݀ܝ, but, the ܝ not being sounded, are pronounced alike: in 𝔗 both are written אַתְּ or אַנְתְּ) Gn 12:11, 13; 24:23 + often. Thrice Nu 11:15; Dt 5:24; Ez 28:14 used as a masc. (as in Aramaic of 𝔗); but prob. אַתָּ (v. sub אַתָּה) should be here read.

I. pron. 2 m.pl. you (masc.) (for antem, v. supr.) Gn 9:7; 26:27; 29:4 + often. With הֲ, הָאַתֶּם †Ju 6:31; following the vb. for emph. Ju 15:12; Je 34:15; construed inaccurately with a fem. Ez 13:20.

I. Ez 34:31 (many edd. אַתֶּן), אַתֵּ֫נָה Gn 31:6 Ez 13:11, 20 (edd. אַתֵּ֫נָּה) 34:17 pron. 2 f.pl. you (fem.)

— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.

Origin: a primitive pronoun of the second person

TWOT: 189


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.

אַתָּה

  • ,, v. אָנֹכִי) thou. Ber. 11ᵃ; a. fr.—אתה אומר, v. אַתְּ.—Pl. אַתֶּם, אַתֶּן ye. Ber. I, 1; a. fr.—R. Hash. 25ᵃ א׳ א׳ א׳ ג׳ פעמים וכ׳ three times attem is written (אֹתָם, without ו); v. אֲפִילּוּ. Sifra Emor IX, 9; 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 126 distinct written forms H859 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
אַתָּ֣ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Amos 7:16 100
אַתָּ֖ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Deuteronomy 1:37 71
אַתָּ֥ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Deuteronomy 7:1 67
אַתָּה֙ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Deuteronomy 4:35 55
וְ/אַתָּ֣ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 12:4 52
אַתֶּ֣ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 2:4 48
אַתָּ֤ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Amos 7:8 38
וְ/אַתָּ֖ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 12:13 32
אַתֶּם֙ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 11:31 30
אַתֶּ֥ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Amos 9:7 28
אָ֑תָּה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 9:23 27
וְ/אַתָּה֙ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 8:26 27
אָֽתָּה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Deuteronomy 9:6 22
אַתֶּ֖ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 12:7 21
אַתָּ֛ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Deuteronomy 28:52 19
וְ/אַתֶּ֖ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 1:40 17
וְ/אַתָּ֞ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 14:16 16
אַ֔תָּה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 33:3 15
אַתָּ֨ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Deuteronomy 2:18 15
אַ֭תָּה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Job 8:5 14
אַתֶּ֛ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 4:5 13
אַתָּ֔ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Deuteronomy 7:6 13
וְ/אַתֶּם֙ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 4:4 13
וְ/אַתָּ֗ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Amos 7:17 13
וְ/אַתָּ֤ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 33:12 13
אַתֶּ֑ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Ezekiel 34:31 12
אַ֣תְּ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular Ezekiel 16:52 11
אַתֶּ֔ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 14:1 11
אַתָּ֗ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Deuteronomy 31:7 11
וְ/אַתָּ֥ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Deuteronomy 28:43 10
אַתֶּ֜ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 4:26 9
אַתֶּ֤ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 31:13 9
אַתָּ֕ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 18:18 9
אַתָּ֞ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 19:23 9
וְ/אַתֶּ֗ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Exodus 12:22 9
אַתָּה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Chronicles 17:26 8
וְ/אַתָּ֛ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 15:15 8
אַ֖תְּ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular Ezekiel 16:48 7
וְ/אַתֶּ֣ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 Chronicles 15:7 7
אַ֠תָּה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 31:52 6
אַתֶּ֞ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Genesis 45:8 6
אַתֶּֽם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Genesis 42:14 6
הַ/אַתָּ֥ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Kings 18:7 6
וְ֠/אַתָּה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Ezekiel 33:9 6
אַתְּ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular Genesis 39:9 5
אַ֖תָּה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Habakkuk 2:16 5
אַתֶּ֗ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 12:12 5
אַתֶּ֨ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Deuteronomy 20:3 5
אתי Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular Ezekiel 36:13 5
וְ/אַתֶּ֥ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Haggai 1:9 5
אַ֑תָּה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Psalms 2:7 4
אַ֤תְּ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 Kings 2:15 4
אַתָּֽה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 Chronicles 20:6 4
אַתָּה֩ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 3:18 4
אָ֑תְּ Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular Ezekiel 36:13 4
וְ/אַתֶּ֞ם Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Ezekiel 36:8 4
וְ/אַתָּ֡ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 28:1 4
וְ/אַתָּ֨ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Ezekiel 5:1 4
אַ֝תָּ֗ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Psalms 16:5 3
אַתָּ֧ה Pronoun, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Kings 18:36 3

The 60 most common forms are shown; 66 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.


Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H859, 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.

Derived from this word

Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint verse parallels

This word appears in 904 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 997 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.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

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