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).
Every verse where H929 appears in the Book of Genesis — 19 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.
Genesis
- Genesis 1:24 בְּהֵמָ֥ה n c fs God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind," and it was so.
- Genesis 1:25 הַ/בְּהֵמָה֙ ptcl def.art + n c fs God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.
- Genesis 1:26 וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָה֙ conj + prep det + n c fs God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
- Genesis 2:20 הַ/בְּהֵמָה֙ ptcl def.art + n c fs The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper suitable for him.
- Genesis 3:14 הַ/בְּהֵמָ֔ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Yahweh God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above every animal of the field. On your belly shall you go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
- Genesis 6:7 בְּהֵמָ֔ה n c fs Yahweh said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground; man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."
- Genesis 6:20 הַ/בְּהֵמָה֙ ptcl def.art + n c fs Of the birds after their kind, of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come to you, to keep them alive.
- Genesis 7:2 הַ/בְּהֵמָ֣ה הַ/בְּהֵמָ֡ה ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall take seven pairs of every clean animal with you, the male and his female. Of the animals that are not clean, take two, the male and his female.
- Genesis 7:8 הַ/בְּהֵמָה֙ הַ֨/בְּהֵמָ֔ה ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs Clean animals, animals that are not clean, birds, and everything that creeps on the ground
- Genesis 7:14 הַ/בְּהֵמָה֙ ptcl def.art + n c fs they, and every animal after its kind, all the cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort.
- Genesis 7:21 וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָה֙ conj + prep det + n c fs All flesh died that moved on the earth, including birds, cattle, animals, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man.
- Genesis 7:23 בְּהֵמָה֙ n c fs Every living thing was destroyed that was on the surface of the ground, including man, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.
- Genesis 8:1 הַ/בְּהֵמָ֔ה ptcl def.art + n c fs God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided.
- Genesis 8:17 וּ/בַ/בְּהֵמָ֛ה conj + prep det + n c fs Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, cattle, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth."
- Genesis 8:20 הַ/בְּהֵמָ֣ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
- Genesis 9:10 בַּ/בְּהֵמָ֛ה prep det + n c fs and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every animal of the earth with you. Of all that go out of the ark, even every animal of the earth.
- Genesis 34:23 בְּהֶמְתָּ֔/ם n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp Won't their cattle and their substance and all their animals be ours? Only let us give our consent to them, and they will dwell with us."
- Genesis 36:6 בְּהֶמְתּ֗/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, with his cattle, all his animals, and all his possessions, which he had gathered in the land of Canaan, and went into a land away from his brother Jacob.
- Genesis 47:18 הַ/בְּהֵמָ֖ה ptcl def.art + n c fs When that year was ended, they came to him the second year, and said to him, "We will not hide from my lord how our money is all spent, and the herds of cattle are my lord's. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands.
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.
