תָּפֵל
tasteless
‘tasteless’ is one of 3 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
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
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.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H8602 appears in the Book of Ezekiel — 5 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.
Ezekiel
- Ezekiel 13:10 תָּפֵֽל n c ms Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there is no peace; and when one builds up a wall, behold, they daub it with whitewash:
- Ezekiel 13:11 תָפֵ֖ל n c ms tell those who daub it with whitewash, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and you, great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall tear it.
- Ezekiel 13:14 תָּפֵ֛ל n c ms So will I break down the wall that you have daubed with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation of it shall be uncovered; and it shall fall, and you shall be consumed in the midst of it: and you shall know that I am Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 13:15 תָּפֵ֑ל n c ms Thus will I accomplish my wrath on the wall, and on those who have daubed it with whitewash; and I will tell you, The wall is no more, neither those who daubed it;
- Ezekiel 22:28 תָּפֵ֔ל n c ms Her prophets have daubed for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, Thus says the Lord Yahweh, when Yahweh has not spoken.
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.
At its core, תפל (tâphêl) means “tasteless.” The word gravitates to Ezekiel (71%), then Job and Lamentations. It turns up in 7 verses across 3 books, an uncommon footprint. Scripture first uses it in Job 6:6. Catalogued under 3 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8602 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 →
- 7
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 7 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,835
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,835 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 7 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ezekiel 5 verses 71%
- Job 1 verse 14%
- Lamentations 1 verse 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 7 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 71%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 29%
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 2 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†: Untempered 5×
- American Standard Version†: Untempered 4×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Deceptive 1×, Is tasteless food 1×, Whitewash 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Whitewash 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8602 across 7† 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8602 across 7† 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H8602 across 3† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 4 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8602 across 7† 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.
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.
תפל I tasteless, unseasoned
תפל II [m.] whitewash
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. adj. tasteless, unseasoned;—abs. ת׳, as subst. Jb 6:6; fig. of unsatisfying prophecies La 2:14 (+ שָׁוְא).
II. n.[m.] whitewash;—applied to wall, in Ezekiel’s vision Ez 13:10, 11, 14, 15; fig. of false prophet 22:28.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: from an unused root meaning to smear
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.
תָּפַל
- (v. טָפַל)
- 1. to paste. Tosef. Pes. V, 10 ואין תּוֹפְלִין וכ׳ ed. Zuck. (oth. ed. טוֹפְלִין) you must not paste them over with potter’s clay &c. (to take the hair off), v. טָפַל.
- 2. (cmp. טוּחַ, a. טְפַל) to denounce, slander. Sifré Deut. 1 (play on תֹּפֶל, Deut. I, 1) דברי תפלות שתָּפְלוּ על המן the frivolous words which they cast on the manna; Yalk. ib. 790 שתפלו על המן when they slandered the manna. e.g. Deuteronomy 1:1
תָּפֵל
- (preced.)
- 1. (b. h.) [paste, viscous substance,] tasteless matter, insipid, not salted. Sabb. 128ᵃ בשר ת׳ unsalted (raw) meat, opp. מליח. Ib. דג ת׳ raw fish.—
- *2. dependent, child. — Pl. תְּפֵילִין. Y. Shebi. VII, beg. 37ᵇ, v. אֲלוּנְטִית II; [perh. לת׳ for pastes, plasters].—[Tosef. Sot. VI, 8 על התפל ed. Zuck., v. תִּפְלָה.]
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 7 distinct written forms H8602 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וְ/תָפֵ֔ל | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Lamentations 2:14 | 1 |
| תָפֵ֖ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 13:11 | 1 |
| תָּ֭פֵל | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Job 6:6 | 1 |
| תָּפֵ֑ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 13:15 | 1 |
| תָּפֵ֔ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 22:28 | 1 |
| תָּפֵ֛ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 13:14 | 1 |
| תָּפֵֽל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 13:10 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8602, 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
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 → 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 7 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 7 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.
