אַבְרָהָם

Abraham

BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Abraham’ fuller range ↓

H85 Strong's Hebrew

ʼAbrâhâm Transliteration

/ab-raw-hawm'/ Pronunciation

Usage in the Hebrew Bible 175 appearances

Definition — BDB

Abraham = "father of a multitude" or " chief of multitude" - friend of God and founder of Hebrew nation via God's elective covenant

Cite this entry

Strong's H85 — אברהם (ʼAbrâhâm), "Abraham". Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906). Lemma, https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H85.

Show BibTeX & RIS

BibTeX

@misc{lemma-H85,
  author       = {Lemma},
  title        = {H85 אברהם (ʼAbrâhâm) — Abraham},
  howpublished = {\url{https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H85}},
  note         = {Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906). Lemma interlinear Bible study tool}
}

RIS

TY  - GEN
AU  - Lemma
TI  - H85 — אברהם (ʼAbrâhâm), "Abraham"
PB  - Lemma
N1  - Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906)
UR  - https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H85
ER  -

Compare with another word →

Grammar key — what these labels mean

Noun: A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.

Proper: A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).

Every verse where H85 appears in the Book of Genesis — 117 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.

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.

אברהם (ʼAbrâhâm) is a Hebrew name most often rendered “Abraham.” It clusters heavily in Genesis, which alone accounts for 74% of its uses. It turns up in 159 verses across 16 books, a common footprint. It first appears in Genesis 17:5. The sections below give every occurrence and version rendering.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890

Abraham

Modern gloss

Abraham

Strong's 1890 agrees

About this word

Strong's H85 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 →

159: distinct verses; The word appears in 159 distinct verses.
16 / 39: OT books; The word appears in 16 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 17:5: first appearance; The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 17:5.
Micah 7:20: last appearance; The latest occurrence is in Micah 7:20.
#266: by frequency; Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 266 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 159 occurrences in the concordance →

Most concentrated in

Genesis 117 verses 74%
Exodus 9 verses 6%
Deuteronomy 7 verses 4%

By section of the Old Testament

Pentateuch 135 · 85%
Historical 13 · 8%
Wisdom 4 · 3%
Prophets 7 · 4%

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 159 distinct verses.

Torah (Pentateuch) 135 verses · 85%
Writings (Ketuvim) 13 verses · 8%
Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 verses · 7%

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: Abraham 154×, Abraham's 12×, Was abraham 2×
American Standard Version: Abraham 162×, Was abraham 2×
Berean Standard Bible: Abraham 148×, Abraham’s 13×, Now abraham 3×
unfoldingWord Literal Text: Abraham 170×, Now abraham 2×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H85 across 175 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Abraham” 154×
“Abraham's” 12×
“Was abraham” 2×

Plus 7 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 H85 across 175 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Abraham” 162×
“Was abraham” 2×

Plus 11 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 H85 across 171 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Abraham” 148×
“Abraham’s” 13×
“Now abraham” 3×

Plus 7 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 H85 across 173 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Abraham” 170×
“Now abraham” 2×

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 2 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.

Abraham = "father of a multitude" or " chief of multitude"
friend of God and founder of Hebrew nation via God's elective covenant

Word origin

v. אַבְרָם sub II. אבה.

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

Derived from אב (ʼâb) (H1) — father.

Part of speech: Proper Name Masculine TWOT: 4b

Forms in the corpus

The 30 distinct written forms H85 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
אַבְרָהָ֖ם	Noun, Proper	Exodus 2:24	28
אַבְרָהָ֑ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 17:23	20
אַבְרָהָ֔ם	Noun, Proper	Ezekiel 33:24	20
אַבְרָהָ֛ם	Noun, Proper	Exodus 3:6	14
אַבְרָהָם֙	Noun, Proper	Genesis 20:1	14
אַבְרָהָ֜ם	Noun, Proper	Exodus 3:15	12
אַבְרָהָ֣ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 21:14	10
לְ/אַבְרָהָ֥ם	Noun, Proper	Deuteronomy 9:5	9
אַבְרָהָֽם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 17:22	6
אַבְרָהָ֗ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 21:12	5
אַבְרָהָ֥ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 26:24	4
וְ/אַ֨בְרָהָ֔ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 17:24	4
לְ/אַבְרָהָ֔ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 21:7	3
לְ/אַבְרָהָ֖ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 21:9	3
לְ/אַבְרָהָ֛ם	Noun, Proper	Deuteronomy 6:10	3
לְ/אַבְרָהָ֨ם	Noun, Proper	Deuteronomy 1:8	3
וְ/אַבְרָהָ֖ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 18:33	2
לְ/אַבְרָהָ֑ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 20:14	2
לְ/אַבְרָהָֽם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 25:12	2
אַבְרָ֫הָ֥ם	Noun, Proper	Psalms 47:9	1
אַבְרָהָ֞ם	Noun, Proper	1 Chronicles 29:18	1
אַבְרָהָ֤ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 22:7	1
אַבְרָהָ֧ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 22:4	1
אַבְרָהָ֨ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 50:13	1
אַבְרָהָם֮	Noun, Proper	Genesis 23:16	1
וְ/אַבְרָהָ֣ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 24:1	1
וְ/אַבְרָהָ֤ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 18:11	1
לְ/אַבְרָהָ֗ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 20:9	1
לְ/אַבְרָהָם֩	Noun, Proper	Exodus 32:13	1
מֵֽ/אַבְרָהָ֔ם	Noun, Proper	Genesis 18:17	1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H85, 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

אב ʼâb H1 father

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.

+6 more proper names from this root (not shown).

Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 35 — not the complete family. 31 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.

Bible dictionary

Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Abraham). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.

Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897

Father of a multitude, son of Terah, named (Gen. 11:27) before his older brothers Nahor and Haran, because he was the heir of the promises. Till the age of seventy, Abram sojourned among his kindred in his native country of Chaldea. He then, with his father and his family and household, quitted the city of Ur, in which he had hitherto dwelt, and went some 300 miles north to Haran, where he abode fifteen years. The cause of his migration was a call from God (Acts 7:2-4). There is no mention of this first call in the Old Testament; it is implied, however, in Gen. 12. While they tarried at Haran, Terah died at the age of 205 years. Abram now received a second and more definite call, accompanied by a promise from God (Gen. 12:1, 2); whereupon he took his departure, taking his nephew Lot with him, "not knowing whither he went" (Heb. 11:8). He trusted implicitly to the guidance of Him who had called him.

Abram now, with a large household of probably a thousand souls, entered on a migratory life, and dwelt in tents. Passing along the valley of the Jabbok, in the land of Canaan, he formed his first encampment at Sichem (Gen. 12:6), in the vale or oak-grove of Moreh, between Ebal on the north and Gerizim on the south. Here he received the great promise, "I will make of thee a great nation," etc. (Gen. 12:2, 3, 7). This promise comprehended not only temporal but also spiritual blessings. It implied that he was the chosen ancestor of the great Deliverer whose coming had been long ago predicted (Gen. 3:15). Soon after this, for some reason not mentioned, he removed his tent to the mountain district between Bethel, then called Luz, and Ai, towns about two miles apart, where he built an altar to "Jehovah." He again moved into the southern tract of Palestine, called by the Hebrews the Negeb; and was at length, on account of a famine, compelled to go down into Egypt. This took place in the time of the Hyksos, a Semitic race which now held the Egyptians in bondage. Here occurred that case of deception on the part of Abram which exposed him to the rebuke of Pharaoh (Gen. 12:18). Sarai was restored to him; and Pharaoh loaded him with presents, recommending him to withdraw from the country. He returned to Canaan richer than when he left it, "in cattle, in silver, and in gold" (Gen. 12:8; 13:2. Comp. Ps. 105:13, 14). The whole party then moved northward, and returned to their previous station near Bethel. Here disputes arose between Lot's shepherds and those of Abram about water and pasturage. Abram generously gave Lot his choice of the pasture-ground. (Comp. 1 Cor. 6:7.) He chose the well-watered plain in which Sodom was situated, and removed thither; and thus the uncle and nephew were separated. Immediately after this Abram was cheered by a repetition of the promises already made to him, and then removed to the plain or "oak-grove" of Mamre, which is in Hebron. He finally settled here, pitching his tent under a famous oak or terebinth tree, called "the oak of Mamre" (Gen. 13:18). This was his third resting-place in the land.

Some fourteen years before this, while Abram was still in Chaldea, Palestine had been invaded by Chedorlaomer, King of Elam, who brought under tribute to him the five cities in the plain to which Lot had removed. This tribute was felt by the inhabitants of these cities to be a heavy burden, and after twelve years they revolted. This brought upon them the vengeance of Chedorlaomer, who had in league with him four other kings. He ravaged the whole country, plundering the towns, and carrying the inhabitants away as slaves. Among those thus treated was Lot. Hearing of the disaster that had fallen on his nephew, Abram immediately gathered from his own household a band of 318 armed men, and being joined by the Amoritish chiefs Mamre, Aner, and Eshcol, he pursued after Chedorlaomer, and overtook him near the springs of the Jordan. They attacked and routed his army, and pursued it over the range of Anti-Libanus as far as to Hobah, near Damascus, and then returned, bringing back all the spoils that had been carried away. Returning by way of Salem, i.e., Jerusalem, the king of that place, Melchizedek, came forth to meet them with refreshments. To him Abram presented a tenth of the spoils, in recognition of his character as a priest of the most high God (Gen. 14:18-20).

In a recently-discovered tablet, dated in the reign of the grandfather of Amraphel (Gen. 14:1), one of the witnesses is called "the Amorite, the son of Abiramu," or Abram.

Having returned to his home at Mamre, the promises already made to him by God were repeated and enlarged (Gen. 13:14). "The word of the Lord" (an expression occurring here for the first time) "came to him" (15:1). He now understood better the future that lay before the nation that was to spring from him. Sarai, now seventy-five years old, in her impatience, persuaded Abram to take Hagar, her Egyptian maid, as a concubine, intending that whatever child might be born should be reckoned as her own. Ishmael was accordingly thus brought up, and was regarded as the heir of these promises (Gen. 16). When Ishmael was thirteen years old, God again revealed yet more explicitly and fully his gracious purpose; and in token of the sure fulfilment of that purpose the patriarch's name was now changed from Abram to Abraham (Gen. 17:4, 5), and the rite of circumcision was instituted as a sign of the covenant. It was then announced that the heir to these covenant promises would be the son of Sarai, though she was now ninety years old; and it was directed that his name should be Isaac. At the same time, in commemoration of the promises, Sarai's name was changed to Sarah. On that memorable day of God's thus revealing his design, Abraham and his son Ishmael and all the males of his house were circumcised (Gen. 17). Three months after this, as Abraham sat in his tent door, he saw three men approaching. They accepted his proffered hospitality, and, seated under an oak-tree, partook of the fare which Abraham and Sarah provided. One of the three visitants was none other than the Lord, and the other two were angels in the guise of men. The Lord renewed on this occasion his promise of a son by Sarah, who was rebuked for her unbelief. Abraham accompanied the three as they proceeded on their journey. The two angels went on toward Sodom; while the Lord tarried behind and talked with Abraham, making known to him the destruction that was about to fall on that guilty city. The patriarch interceded earnestly in behalf of the doomed city. But as not even ten righteous persons were found in it, for whose sake the city would have been spared, the threatened destruction fell upon it; and early next morning Abraham saw the smoke of the fire that consumed it as the "smoke of a furnace" (Gen. 19:1-28).

After fifteen years' residence at Mamre, Abraham moved southward, and pitched his tent among the Philistines, near to Gerar. Here occurred that sad instance of prevarication on his part in his relation to Abimelech the King (Gen. 20). (See ABIMELECH.) Soon after this event, the patriarch left the vicinity of Gerar, and moved down the fertile valley about 25 miles to Beer-sheba. It was probably here that Isaac was born, Abraham being now an hundred years old. A feeling of jealousy now arose between Sarah and Hagar, whose son, Ishmael, was no longer to be regarded as Abraham's heir. Sarah insisted that both Hagar and her son should be sent away. This was done, although it was a hard trial to Abraham (Gen. 21:12). (See HAGAR; ISHMAEL.)

At this point there is a blank in the patriarch's history of perhaps twenty-five years. These years of peace and happiness were spent at Beer-sheba. The next time we see him his faith is put to a severe test by the command that suddenly came to him to go and offer up Isaac, the heir of all the promises, as a sacrifice on one of the mountains of Moriah. His faith stood the test (Heb. 11:17-19). He proceeded in a spirit of unhesitating obedience to carry out the command; and when about to slay his son, whom he had laid on the altar, his uplifted hand was arrested by the angel of Jehovah, and a ram, which was entangled in a thicket near at hand, was seized and offered in his stead. From this circumstance that place was called Jehovah-jireh, i.e., "The Lord will provide." The promises made to Abraham were again confirmed (and this was the last recorded word of God to the patriarch); and he descended the mount with his son, and returned to his home at Beer-sheba (Gen. 22:19), where he resided for some years, and then moved northward to Hebron.

Some years after this Sarah died at Hebron, being 127 years old. Abraham acquired now the needful possession of a burying-place, the cave of Machpelah, by purchase from the owner of it, Ephron the Hittite (Gen. 23); and there he buried Sarah. His next care was to provide a wife for Isaac, and for this purpose he sent his steward, Eliezer, to Haran (or Charran, Acts 7:2), where his brother Nahor and his family resided (Gen. 11:31). The result was that Rebekah, the daughter of Nahor's son Bethuel, became the wife of Isaac (Gen. 24). Abraham then himself took to wife Keturah, who became the mother of six sons, whose descendants were afterwards known as the "children of the east" (Judg. 6:3), and later as "Saracens." At length all his wanderings came to an end. At the age of 175 years, 100 years after he had first entered the land of Canaan, he died, and was buried in the old family burying-place at Machpelah (Gen. 25:7-10).

The history of Abraham made a wide and deep impression on the ancient world, and references to it are interwoven in the religious traditions of almost all Eastern nations. He is called "the friend of God" (James 2:23), "faithful Abraham" (Gal. 3:9), "the father of us all" (Rom. 4:16).

Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863

(father of a multitude) was the son of Terah, and founder of the great Hebrew nation. (B.C. 1996-1822.) His family, a branch of the descendants of Shem, was settled in Ur of the Chaldees, beyond the Euphrates, where Abraham was born. Terah had two other sons, Nahor and Haran. Haran died before his father in Ur of the Chaldees, leaving a son, Lot; and Terah, taking with him Abram, with Sarai his wife and his grandson Lot, emigrated to Haran in Mesopotamia, where he died. On the death of his father, Abram, then in the 75th year of his age, with Sarai and Lot, pursued his course to the land of Canaan, whither he was directed by divine command, (Genesis 12:5) when he received the general promise that he should become the founder of a great nation, and that all the families of the earth should be blessed in him. He passed through the heart of the country by the great highway to Shechem, and pitched his tent beneath the terebinth of Moreh. (Genesis 12:6) Here he received in vision from Jehovah the further revelation that this was the land which his descendants should inherit. (Genesis 12:7) The next halting-place of the wanderer was on a mountain between Bethel and Ai, (Genesis 12:8) but the country was suffering from famine, and Abram journeyed still southward to the rich cornlands of Egypt. There, fearing that the great beauty of Sarai might tempt the powerful monarch of Egypt and expose his own life to peril, he arranged that Sarai should represent herself as his sister, which her actual relationship to him, as probably the daughter of his brother Haran, allowed her to do with some semblance of truth. But her beauty was reported to the king, and she was taken into the royal harem. The deception was discovered, and Pharaoh with some indignation dismissed Abram from the country. (Genesis 12:10-20) He left Egypt with great possessions, and, accompanied by Lot, returned by the south of Palestine to his former encampment between Bethel and Ai. The increased wealth of the two kinsmen was the ultimate cause of their separation. Lot chose the fertile plain of the Jordan near Sodom, while Abram pitched his tent among the groves of Mamre, close to Hebron. (Genesis 13:1) ... Lot with his family and possessions having been carried away captive by Chedorlaomer king of Elam, who had invaded Sodom, Abram pursued the conquerors and utterly routed them not far from Damascus. The captives and plunder were all recovered, and Abram was greeted on his return by the king of Sodom, and by Melchizedek king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who mysteriously appears upon the scene to bless the patriarch and receive from him a tenth of the spoil. (Genesis 14:1) ... After this the thrice-repeated promise that his descendants should become a mighty nation and possess the land in which he was a stranger was confirmed with all the solemnity of a religious ceremony. (Genesis 15:1) ... Ten years had passed since he had left his father's house, and the fulfillment of the promise was apparently more distant than at first. At the suggestion of Sarai, who despaired of having children of her own, he took as his concubine Hagar, her Egyptian main, who bore him Ishmael in the 86th year of his age. (Genesis 16:1) ... [Hagar; Ishmael] But this was not the accomplishment of the promise. Thirteen years elapsed, during which Abram still dwelt in Hebron, when the covenant was renewed, and the rite of circumcision established as its sign. This most important crisis in Abram's life, when he was 99 years old, is marked by the significant change of his name to Abraham, "father of a multitude;" while his wife's from Sarai became Sarah. The promise that Sarah should have a son was repeated in the remarkable scene described in ch. 18. Three men stood before Abraham as he sat in his tent door in the heat of the day. The patriarch, with true Eastern hospitality, welcomed the strangers, and bade them rest and refresh themselves. The meal ended, they foretold the birth of Isaac, and went on their way to Sodom. Abraham accompanied them, and is represented as an interlocutor in a dialogue with Jehovah, in which he pleaded in vain to avert the vengeance threatened to the devoted cities of the plain. (Genesis 18:17-33) In remarkable contrast with Abraham's firm faith with regard to the magnificent fortunes of his posterity stand the incident which occurred during his temporary residence among the Philistines in Gerar, whither he had for some cause removed after the destruction of Sodom. It was almost a repetition of what took place in Egypt a few years before. At length Isaac, the long-looked for child, was born. Sarah's jealousy aroused by the mockery of Ishmael at the "great banquet" which Abram made to celebrate the weaning of her son, (Genesis 21:9) demanded that, with his mother Hagar, he should be driven out. (Genesis 21:10) But the severest trial of his faith was yet to come. For a long period the history is almost silent. At length he receives the strange command to take Isaac, his only son, and offer him for a burnt offering at an appointed place Abraham hesitated not to obey. His faith, hitherto unshaken, supported him in this final trial, "accounting that God was able to raise up his son, even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure." (Hebrews 11:19) The sacrifice was stayed by the angel of Jehovah, the promise of spiritual blessing made for the first time, and Abraham with his son returned to Beersheba, and for a time dwelt there. (Genesis 22:1) ... But we find him after a few years in his original residence at Hebron, for there Sarah died, (Genesis 23:2) and was buried in the cave of Machpelah. The remaining years of Abraham's life are marked by but few incidents. After Isaac's marriage with Rebekah and his removal to Lahai-roi, Abraham took to wife Keturah, by whom he had six children, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbok and Shuah, who became the ancestors of nomadic tribes inhabiting the countries south and southeast of Palestine. Abraham lived to see the gradual accomplishment of the promise in the birth of his grandchildren Jacob and Esau, and witnessed their growth to manhood. (Genesis 25:26) At the goodly age of 175 he was "gathered to his people," and laid beside Sarah in the tomb of Machpelah by his sons Isaac and Ishmael. (Genesis 25:7-10)

Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869

father of a great multitude

Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.

Septuagint verse parallels

This word appears in 157 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 159 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.

אַבְרָהָם

Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)

Where this word appears

Genesis

About this entry