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בְּהֵמָה

beast

also: cattle, animal fuller range ↓

H929 Strong's Hebrew
bᵉhêmâh Transliteration
/be-hay-maw'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 190 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.

At its core, בהמה (bᵉhêmâh) means “beast.” Older and newer Bibles part ways — “beast” in the King James Version, “livestock” (Berean Standard Bible) and “animal” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. Spanning 172 verses in 27 books, it ranks among the common words of the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Genesis 1:24. Not a single-sense word: its full sense range also takes in “cattle” and “animal”. See the sense tree, 172-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
beast
Modern gloss
beast
Strong's 1890 agrees
Strong's 1890 and current BDB scholarship align on this entry's primary sense — a good signal that the gloss above is unambiguous and stable. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H929 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 →

172
distinct verses
The word appears in 172 distinct verses.
27 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 27 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 1:24
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 1:24.
Zechariah 14:15
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Zechariah 14:15.
#245
by frequency
Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 245 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 172 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 91 · 53%
  • Historical 17 · 10%
  • Wisdom 19 · 11%
  • Prophets 45 · 26%

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 172 distinct verses.

  • Torah (Pentateuch) 91 verses · 53%
  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 55 verses · 32%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 26 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: Beast 61×, Beasts 31×, Cattle 31×
  • American Standard Version: Beast 57×, Cattle 31×, Beasts 25×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Livestock 40×, Beast 37×, Animal 28×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Animal 35×, Beast 35×, Livestock 35×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H929 across 188 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Beast” 61×
  • “Beasts” 31×
  • “Cattle” 31×
  • “All the beasts” 4×
  • “Any beast” 4×
  • “All the cattle” 3×
  • “Among the beasts” 3×
  • “Or beast” 3×
  • “Without beast” 3×
  • “All cattle” 2×
  • “All manner of beasts” 2×
  • “Every beast” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 37 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.

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders H929 across 188 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Beast” 57×
  • “Cattle” 31×
  • “Beasts” 25×
  • “All the cattle” 4×
  • “Any beast” 4×
  • “All the beasts” 3×
  • “Among the beasts” 3×
  • “Or beast” 3×
  • “Without beast” 3×
  • “All cattle” 2×
  • “Among beasts” 2×
  • “Every beast” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 45 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 H929 across 186 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Livestock” 40×
  • “Beast” 37×
  • “Animal” 28×
  • “Animals” 21×
  • “Beasts” 16×
  • “Cattle” 9×
  • “Or beast” 6×
  • “Herds” 2×
  • “Or animal” 2×
  • “Or livestock” 2×

Plus 23 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 H929 across 189 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Animal” 35×
  • “Beast” 35×
  • “Livestock” 35×
  • “Cattle” 17×
  • “Beasts” 12×
  • “Animals” 8×
  • “Beast of” 7×
  • “Beasts of” 4×
  • “Among the animal” 3×
  • “Among the animals” 3×
  • “Animal s” 3×
  • “The” 3×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 22 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 3 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. of living creatures other than man (אָדָם) Gn 8:1 Ex 8:13, 14; 9:9, 10, 22; 22:18 Lv 18:23(×2) (where בּ׳ is male, S 20:16) Dt 27:21 ψ 36:7 etc.; מֵאָדָם וְעַד בּ׳ (בּ׳ including all the larger animals) Ex 9:25; 12:12 ψ 135:8 Je 50:3 etc.; as inferior to man Jb 18:2 ψ 49:13, 21, so also Ec 3:18, 19(×2), 21; opp. also birds & reptiles Gn 6:7; 7:23; 8:17 cf. Ez 44:31 etc.; also to fishes 1 K 5:13 Jb 12:7 cf. v 8, ψ 8:9 Zp 1:3. e.g. Genesis 8:1
  • 2. opp. also to wild beasts חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ, ח׳ הַשָּׂדֶה Gn 1:24, 25, 26; 2:20; 3:14; 7:14, 21; 9:10 ψ 50:10; 148:10 Is 46:1 etc.; especially therefore cattle, as owned and used by man, Gn 47:18 (מִקְנֵה הַבּ׳) Ex 20:10 = Dt 5:14, Lv 19:19; 26:22 Nu 3:41(×2) 45(×2) Dt 2:35; 11:15 Jon 4:11 Zc 2:8; 8:10; 14:15 Ezr 1:4, 6 Ne 9:37; 10:37 etc.; in one (late) passage of animal for riding (horse? mule?) Ne 2:12(×2), 14. e.g. Genesis 1:24
  • 3. rarely of wild beasts, especially carnivora, בּ׳ יַעַר Mi 5:7; בּ׳ הָאָרֶץ Dt 28:26 Is 18:6(×2) Je 7:33; 15:3; 16:4; 19:7 34:20; בּ׳ הַשָּׂרֶה 1 S 17:44; alone, Pr 30:30; שֶׁן־בְּהֵמוֹת Dt 32:24; שֹׁד בּ׳ Hb 2:17.—On בְּהֵמוֹת ψ 73:22 cf. infr. e.g. Micah 5:7

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

n.f. beast, animal, cattle (Arabic بَهِيمَةٌ )—בּ׳ Gn 1:24 + 137 times; cstr. בֶּהֱמַת Nu 3:41(×2) + 10 times; sf. בְּהֶמְתְּךָ Lv 19:19 + 4 times; בְּהֶמְתֶּ֑ךָ Ex 20:10 + 4 times; בְּהֶמְתּוֹ Gn 36:6 Pr 12:10; pl. abs. בְּהֵמוֹת Dt 32:24 + 6 times + ψ 73:22 (v. infr.); cstr. בַּהֲמוֹת ψ 8:8 + 5 times;—beast, & coll. beasts (Gn 8:1 + very often)

— 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 (probably meaning to be mute)

Part of speech: Noun Feminine TWOT: 208a


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.

בְּהֵמָה

  • , Æthiop. to be dumb; √בה, v. בהי) cattle, quadruped domestic animal (mostly of the horned race); in gen. dumb beast, opp. to man. Gen. R. s. 20 ב׳ חיה ועופות domestic animals, wild beasts, and birds; a. fr.—ב׳ גסה large cattle (of the bovine race); ב׳ דקה small cattle (sheep, goats &c.). Bekh. 8ᵃ; a. fr.—בֶּהֱמַת מלוג, ב׳ ארנונא &c., v. מְלוּג, אַרְנוֹנָא &c.—Pl. בְּהֵמוֹת Gen. R. s. 86; a. fr.

הָמָה

  • , v. המי

המי

  • to be noisy, excited, with אחר to rush after, be greedy, envious &c.—Cant. R. to VIII, 11 הָמוּ, v. הָמוֹן a. הֲמוֹנוּת. Part. הוֹמֶה, v. infra; fem. הוֹמִיָּה. Y. M. Kat. III, beg. 81ᶜ (in a riddle) ה׳ בירכתי ביתה she (the soul?) is restless in the corners of her house. Midr. Till. to Ps. LXXVII הוֹמִים are in commotion.
    • same, to covet (with אחר). Lev. R. s. 22 (ref. to אוהב בהמון, Koh. V, 9) כל מי שהומה ומְהַמֶּה אחר הממון whosoever is greedy and covetous for money; ib. הומה ומה׳ אחר תורה ambitious to accumulate learning; a. e.—Part. pass. f. מְהוּמָּת anxious. Nidd. 5ᵃ, v. בַּיִת.—Denom. מָמוֹן. e.g. Ecclesiastes 5:9

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 96 distinct written forms H929 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
בְּהֵמָ֑ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 27:21 9
בְּהֵמָ֖ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 4:17 8
הַ/בְּהֵמָ֔ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ecclesiastes 3:21 8
הַ/בְּהֵמָה֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ecclesiastes 3:19 8
הַ/בְּהֵמָ֖ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 2:35 7
וּ/בְהֵמָֽה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 14:13 6
בְּהֵמָֽה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Exodus 11:5 5
הַ/בְּהֵמָ֑ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 44:31 5
הַ/בְּהֵמָ֗ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ecclesiastes 3:19 5
וּ/בְהֵמָ֖ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 36:11 4
בְּהֵמָ֔ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Genesis 6:7 4
וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָ֑ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Exodus 8:17 4
וּ/לְ/בֶהֱמַ֥ת Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 17:44 4
בְּהֵמָ֣ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 2 Chronicles 32:28 3
בְּהֵמָ֥ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ecclesiastes 3:18 3
בְּהֵמָה֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Genesis 7:23 3
בֶּהֱמַ֥ת Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Isaiah 18:6 3
בַּ/בְּהֵמָ֑ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 14:6 3
הַ/בְּהֵמָ֣ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Genesis 7:2 3
וְ/הַ/בְּהֵמָ֜ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 20:14 3
וּ/בְהֵמָה֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 8:10 3
וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָֽה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Exodus 8:18 3
בְּ֝הֵמ֗וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Psalms 50:10 2
בִּ/בְהֵמָ֔ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Leviticus 27:10 2
בַּהֲמ֣וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct Isaiah 30:6 2
בַּהֲמ֥וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct Joel 1:20 2
הַ/בְּהֵמָ֡ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Genesis 7:2 2
הַ֨/בְּהֵמָ֔ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Genesis 7:8 2
וְ/הַ/בְּהֵמָ֔ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Jonah 3:8 2
וּ/בְהֵמָ֔ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 2 Chronicles 32:28 2
וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָ֖ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ezra 1:6 2
וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָה֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Genesis 1:26 2
וּ/לְ/בֶהֱמַ֣ת Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 28:26 2
כַּ/בְּהֵמ֣וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Psalms 49:12 2
בְהֵמ֣וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Job 12:7 1
בְהֵמָ֖ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Leviticus 24:21 1
בְהֵמָ֗ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Joel 1:18 1
בְהֵמָ֛ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Leviticus 18:23 1
בְהֵמוֹת֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Jeremiah 12:4 1
בְהֶמְתְּ/ךָ֛ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 30:9 1
בְהֶמְתְּ/ךָ֥ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 28:51 1
בְהֶמְתֶּ֑/ךָ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 28:4 1
בְהַמְתְּ/ךָ֖ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 28:11 1
בְּ/בֶהֱמַ֖ת Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Numbers 3:41 1
בְּ/בַהֲמ֣וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct Micah 5:8 1
בְּהֵמ֖וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Habakkuk 2:17 1
בְּהֵמָ֗ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Exodus 13:12 1
בְּהֵמָ֛ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Leviticus 18:23 1
בְּהֵמָ֞ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 14:6 1
בְּהֵמוֹת֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Deuteronomy 32:24 1
בְּהֶמְתּ֑/וֹ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 12:10 1
בְּהֶמְתּ֗/וֹ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Genesis 36:6 1
בְּהֶמְתְּ/ךָ֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Leviticus 19:19 1
בְּהֶמְתְּ/כֶ֔ם Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Leviticus 26:22 1
בְּהֶמְתֵּ֑/נוּ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Numbers 32:26 1
בְּהֶמְתֶּ֗/ךָ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 5:14 1
בְּהֶמְתָּ֑/ם Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Numbers 3:45 1
בְּהֶמְתָּ֔/הּ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Ezekiel 32:13 1
בְּהֶמְתָּ֔/ם Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Genesis 34:23 1
בְּהֶמְתָּ֖/הּ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 13:15 1

The 60 most common forms are shown; 36 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.


Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H929, 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 162 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 172 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

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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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