בְּהֵמָה
beast
also: cattle, animal fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
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.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
17 verses where H929 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of Exodus. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Exodus
- Exodus 8:17 וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָ֑ה conj + prep det + n c fs They did so; and Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and struck the dust of the earth, and there were lice on man, and on animal; all the dust of the earth became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 8:18 וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָֽה conj + prep det + n c fs The magicians tried with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they couldn't. There were lice on man, and on animal.
- Exodus 9:9 הַ/בְּהֵמָ֗ה ptcl def.art + n c fs It shall become small dust over all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with boils on man and on animal, throughout all the land of Egypt."
- Exodus 9:10 וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָֽה conj + prep det + n c fs They took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses sprinkled it up toward the sky; and it became a boil breaking forth with boils on man and on animal.
- Exodus 9:19 וְ/הַ/בְּהֵמָ֜ה conj + ptcl def.art + n c fs Now therefore command that all of your cattle and all that you have in the field be brought into shelter. Every man and animal that is found in the field, and isn't brought home, the hail shall come down on them, and they shall die."'"
- Exodus 9:22 הַ/בְּהֵמָ֗ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Yahweh said to Moses, "Stretch forth your hand toward the sky, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, on man, and on animal, and on every herb of the field, throughout the land of Egypt."
- Exodus 9:25 בְּהֵמָ֑ה n c fs The hail struck throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and animal; and the hail struck every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field.
- Exodus 11:5 בְּהֵמָֽה n c fs and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the maid-servant who is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of cattle.
- Exodus 11:7 בְּהֵמָ֑ה n c fs But against any of the children of Israel a dog won't even bark or move its tongue, against man or animal; that you may know that Yahweh makes a distinction between the Egyptians and Israel.
- Exodus 12:12 בְּהֵמָ֑ה n c fs For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Yahweh.
- Exodus 12:29 בְּהֵמָֽה n c fs It happened at midnight, that Yahweh struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.
- Exodus 13:2 וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָ֑ה conj + prep det + n c fs "Sanctify to me all of the firstborn, whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of animal. It is mine."
- Exodus 13:12 בְּהֵמָ֗ה n c fs that you shall set apart to Yahweh all that opens the womb, and every firstborn which you have that comes from an animal. The males shall be Yahweh's.
- Exodus 13:15 בְּהֵמָ֑ה n c fs and it happened, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that Yahweh killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of animal. Therefore I sacrifice to Yahweh all that opens the womb, being males; but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.'
- Exodus 19:13 בְּהֵמָ֥ה n c fs No hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through; whether it is animal or man, he shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come up to the mountain."
- Exodus 22:10 בְּהֵמָ֖ה n c fs "If a man delivers to his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any animal to keep, and it dies or is injured, or driven away, no man seeing it;
- Exodus 22:19 בְּהֵמָ֖ה n c fs "Whoever has sex with an animal shall surely be put to death.
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
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.
- #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 →
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 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:
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:
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:
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:
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)
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.
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
- Genesis 1:24
- Exodus 8:17
- Leviticus 1:2
- Numbers 3:13
- Deuteronomy 2:35
- Joshua 8:2
- Judges 20:48
- 1 Kings 18:5
- 2 Kings 3:9
- 2 Chronicles 32:28
- Ezra 1:4
- Job 12:7
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.
