בָּדַל
to separate
‘to separate’ is one of 11 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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”). Here: ‘divide’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”). Here: ‘be separated’
Form
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H914 appears in the Book of 2 Chronicles — 1 distinct verse. 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.
2 Chronicles
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.
The Hebrew verb בדל centers on the idea of “to separate.” Where the King James Version says “separated,” newer translations reach for “and” (unfoldingWord Literal Text); the renderings breakdown has the detail. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 40 verses — moderately common. First canonically at Genesis 1:4, it enters the text early. Across 2 stems, its meaning turns on the binyan (Hiphil, Niphal). Dig into 40-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H914 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 →
- 40
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 40 distinct verses.
- 12 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 12 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #864
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 864 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 40 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 40 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 21 verses · 53%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 13 verses · 33%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 6 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: Separated 6×, Divide 2×, Divided 2×
- American Standard Version: Separate 3×, Separated 3×, Set apart 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Separate 4×, Had separated themselves 2×, Separated 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: And 7×, Separate 5×, Separated 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H914 across 42 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 26 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 H914 across 42 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 27 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 H914 across 41 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 29 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 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H914 across 57 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 25 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
7 senses and sub-senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
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 7 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.
Hiphil
- . divide, separate
- 1. divide, separate, subj. God
- 2. separate, set apart
- 3. make a distinction between clean and unclean, holy and profane
- 4. divide into parts
Niphal
- 1. (reflex. of Hiph. 2)
- 2. pass. be separated
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
[ בָּדַל ] vb. be divided, separate
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
בָּדַל
- (√בד, v. בדד) to separate, divide, distinguish; (neut. v.) בָּדֵל to keep aloof. Pes. 87ᵇ בְּדוֹל עצמך וכ׳ withdraw thyself from (touching) her. Y. Ḥag. II, 78ᵇ top כדי שיהא בָּדֵל מן התרומה in order that he may be careful in handling T’rummah. B. Mets. 59ᵇ it seems to me שחברים בְּדֵילִים וכ׳ that the colleagues hold themselves aloof from thee (i.e. thou art excommunicated). Ib. 89ᵃ ב׳ בתמרים to separate (with a tool) dates which stick together (cmp. Rashi a. l.); Y. Maasr. II, 50ᵃ top הבדיל בתמרים (read הבודל). Ber. 5ᵃ יסורין בְּדֵילִין וכ׳ pains will stay away from him; a. fr.
- 1. to sever, set apart, distinguish. Ḥull. 21ᵇ מולק ואינו מַבְדִּיל he nips the bird’s neck but must not sever a limb or cut with his nail deeper than required (Lev. I, 17). Ib. I, 7 המבדיל בין וכ׳ He who established distinctions between (the) sanctity (of the Sabbath) and (the) sanctity (of the Festivals); a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 1:17
- 2. (denom. of אַבְדָּלָה or הַבְדָּלָה) to recite the benediction Hammabdil on the exit of the Sabbath or Festival, to say Habdalah. Ibid. כיצד מבדילין what formula must you use (at the exit of the Sabbath and the simultaneous beginning of a Festival)? a. fr.—Part. Hof. מוּבְדָּל separated, distinguished. Num. R. s. 10 beg. מוּבְדָּלִים וכ׳ are different from the doings of other nations. Naz. 7ᵃ מוּבְדָּלוֹת זו מזו are separated one from another. Tosef. Peah III, 5; a. fr.
בְּדַל
- 1. as h. Kal. (neut.) Ḥull. 116ᵇ וכ׳ בדלינן we abstain from them. Ib. לא בדילי וכ׳ do not abstain; a. e.
- 2. (as foreg. Hif. 2) to say Habdalah. Erub. 40ᵇ מי בדלת hast thou said Habd.? … אין בדילנא yes, I have &c.
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 37 distinct written forms H914 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H914, 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
- בדיל bᵉdîyl H913 tin
- בדל bâdâl H915 piece
- בדלח bᵉdôlach H916 bdellium
- מבדלה mibdâlâh H3995 separate place
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 37 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 40 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 1:4
- Exodus 26:33
- Leviticus 1:17
- Numbers 8:14
- Deuteronomy 4:41
- 1 Kings 8:53
- 1 Chronicles 12:8
- 2 Chronicles 25:10
- Ezra 6:21
- Isaiah 56:3
- Ezekiel 22:26
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.
