לָמַד
la.mad
to learn: teach
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# The Hebrew Word למד (lamad): Learning and Teaching The Hebrew verb למד (lamad) appears 63 times throughout the Bible and carries the fundamental meaning of acquiring knowledge or skill through instruction. The word encompasses both sides of the educational process—the learner's act of learning and the teacher's act of instruction. This dual capacity reflects how the word functioned in ancient Hebrew communication: the same root could describe a student absorbing information or a mentor conveying it, depending on context and grammatical construction. The frequency of this word's appearance—63 occurrences—suggests that learning and teaching were significant concepts in biblical thought and practice. The word's presence across the biblical text indicates that the processes of education and knowledge transmission held enough importance to warrant repeated discussion and reference. Whether describing the acquisition of practical skills, religious instruction, or the internalization of wisdom, למד served as the primary Hebrew term for expressing the fundamental human activity of learning.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
63 total occurrences across the text — showing 50
For Ezra had set his heart to seek Yahweh’s law, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.
Job 21:22“Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?
Psalms 18:34He teaches my hands to war, so that my arms bend a bow of bronze.
Psalms 25:4Show me your ways, Yahweh. Teach me your paths.
Psalms 25:5Guide me in your truth, and teach me, For you are the God of my salvation, I wait for you all day long.
Psalms 25:9He will guide the humble in justice. He will teach the humble his way.
Psalms 34:11Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of Yahweh.
Psalms 51:13Then I will teach transgressors your ways. Sinners will be converted to you.
Psalms 60:0to the/ choirmaster on shushan- eduth a miktam of/ David to/ teach when/ struggled with/ he obj. Aram Naharaim and/ obj. Aram Zobah and/ he turned back Joab and/ he struck obj. Edom in/ the Valley of Salt two plus ten thousand
Psalms 71:17God, you have taught me from my youth. Until now, I have declared your wondrous works.
Psalms 94:10He who disciplines the nations, won’t he punish? He who teaches man knows.
Psalms 94:12Blessed is the man whom you discipline, Yah, and teach out of your law,
Psalms 119:12Blessed are you, Yahweh. Teach me your statutes.
Psalms 119:26I declared my ways, and you answered me. Teach me your statutes.
Psalms 119:64The earth is full of your loving kindness, Yahweh. Teach me your statutes.
Psalms 119:66Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.
Psalms 119:68You are good, and do good. Teach me your statutes.
Psalms 119:99I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.
Psalms 119:108Accept, I beg you, the willing offerings of my mouth. Yahweh, teach me your ordinances.
Psalms 119:124Deal with your servant according to your loving kindness. Teach me your statutes.
Psalms 119:135Make your face shine on your servant. Teach me your statutes.
Psalms 119:171Let my lips utter praise, for you teach me your statutes.
Psalms 132:12If your children will keep my covenant, my testimony that I will teach them, their children also will sit on your throne forever more.”
Psalms 143:10Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness.
Psalms 144:1Blessed be Yahweh, my rock, who teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to battle:
Proverbs 5:13neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor turned my ear to those who instructed me!
Ecclesiastes 12:9Further, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yes, he pondered, sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
Song of Solomon 3:8They all handle the sword, and are expert in war. Every man has his sword on his thigh, because of fear in the night.
Song of Solomon 8:2I would lead you, bringing you into the house of my mother, who would instruct me. I would have you drink spiced wine, of the juice of my pomegranate.
Isaiah 29:13The Lord said, “Because this people draws near with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but they have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught;
Isaiah 40:14Who did he take counsel with, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
Isaiah 40:14Who did he take counsel with, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
Isaiah 48:17Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: “I am Yahweh your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go.
Jeremiah 2:33How well you prepare your way to seek love! Therefore you have even taught the wicked women your ways.
Jeremiah 9:5Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves commiting iniquity.
Jeremiah 9:14but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”
Jeremiah 9:20Yet hear Yahweh’s word, you women. Let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach your daughters wailing. Everyone teach her neighbor a lamentation.
Jeremiah 12:16It will happen, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, ‘As Yahweh lives;’ even as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the middle of my people.
Jeremiah 13:21What will you say, when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?
Jeremiah 31:18“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.
Jeremiah 31:34They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says Yahweh: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Jeremiah 32:33They have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. Although I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.
Jeremiah 32:33They have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. Although I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.
Daniel 1:4youths in whom was no defect, but well-favored, and skillful in all wisdom, and endowed with knowledge, and understanding science, and who had the ability to stand in the king’s palace; and that he should teach them the learning and the language of the Chaldeans.
Hosea 10:11Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh; so I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck. I will set a rider on Ephraim. Judah will plow. Jacob will break his clods.
1 Chronicles 25:7The number of them, with their brothers who were instructed in singing to Yahweh, even all who were skillful, was two hundred eighty-eight.
Deuteronomy 4:1Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, gives you.
Deuteronomy 4:5Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do so in the middle of the land where you go in to possess it.
Deuteronomy 4:10the day that you stood before Yahweh your God in Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, “Assemble the people to me, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.”
Deuteronomy 4:14Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it.