נָתַן
na.tan
to give: give
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# The Hebrew Verb נָתַן (natan): "To Give" The Hebrew verb נָתַן appears 1,315 times throughout the biblical text, making it one of the most frequently used verbs in the Hebrew Bible. Its core meaning is straightforward: "to give." This high frequency reflects the fundamental importance of the concept of giving in biblical literature and thought, suggesting that acts of giving—whether of objects, land, authority, or blessing—form a central theme in how biblical authors describe human relationships, divine action, and covenant relationships. The sheer number of occurrences (over 1,300 instances) indicates that "giving" functions as a primary way biblical writers express transfer of ownership, bestowal of gifts, granting of permissions, and divine provision. The word encompasses a wide semantic range: one can give material goods, give land, give life, give authority, give commands, or give blessings. This versatility makes נָתַן essential for understanding biblical narratives and theological claims, as the act of giving frequently serves as a narrative mechanism and as an expression of relationship—both between God and humans and among people themselves.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
1,315 total occurrences across the text — showing 50
Didn’t you, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it to the offspring of Abraham your friend forever?
2 Chronicles 21:3Their father gave them great gifts of silver, of gold, and of precious things, with fortified cities in Judah; but he gave the kingdom to Jehoram, because he was the firstborn.
2 Chronicles 21:3Their father gave them great gifts of silver, of gold, and of precious things, with fortified cities in Judah; but he gave the kingdom to Jehoram, because he was the firstborn.
2 Chronicles 21:7However Yahweh would not destroy David’s house, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a lamp to him and to his children always.
2 Chronicles 23:9Jehoiada the priest delivered to the captains of hundreds the spears, and bucklers, and shields, that had been king David’s, which were in God’s house.
2 Chronicles 24:12The king and Jehoiada gave it to those who did the work of the service of Yahweh’s house. They hired masons and carpenters to restore Yahweh’s house, and also those who worked iron and bronze to repair Yahweh’s house.
2 Chronicles 24:24For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men; and Yahweh delivered a very great army into their hand, because they had forsaken Yahweh, the God of their fathers. So they executed judgment on Joash.
2 Chronicles 25:9Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel?” The man of God answered, “Yahweh is able to give you much more than this.”
2 Chronicles 25:9Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel?” The man of God answered, “Yahweh is able to give you much more than this.”
2 Chronicles 25:20But Amaziah would not listen; for it was of God, that he might deliver them into the hand of their enemies, because they had sought after the gods of Edom.
2 Chronicles 27:5He also fought with the king of the children of Ammon, and prevailed against them. The children of Ammon gave him the same year one hundred talents of silver, ten thousand cors of wheat, and ten thousand cors of barley. The children of Ammon also gave that much to him in the second year, and in the third.
2 Chronicles 28:5Therefore Yahweh his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria. They struck him, and carried away from him a great multitude of captives, and brought them to Damascus. He was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with a great slaughter.
2 Chronicles 28:5Therefore Yahweh his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria. They struck him, and carried away from him a great multitude of captives, and brought them to Damascus. He was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with a great slaughter.
2 Chronicles 28:9But a prophet of Yahweh was there, whose name was Oded; and he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria, and said to them, “Behold, because Yahweh, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage which has reached up to heaven.
2 Chronicles 28:21For Ahaz took away a portion out of Yahweh’s house, and out of the house of the king and of the princes, and gave it to the king of Assyria; but it didn’t help him.
Nehemiah 9:8found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his offspring, and have performed your words; for you are righteous.
Nehemiah 9:8found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his offspring, and have performed your words; for you are righteous.
2 Chronicles 30:8Now don’t be stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to Yahweh, and enter into his sanctuary, which he has sanctified forever, and serve Yahweh your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you.
2 Chronicles 30:12Also the hand of God came on Judah to give them one heart, to do the commandment of the king and of the princes by Yahweh’s word.
2 Chronicles 31:4Moreover he commanded the people who lived in Jerusalem to give the portion of the priests and the Levites, that they might give themselves to Yahweh’s law.
2 Chronicles 31:15Under him were Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah, in the cities of the priests, in their office of trust, to give to their brothers by divisions, to the great as well as to the small;
2 Chronicles 31:19Also for the sons of Aaron the priests, who were in the fields of the pasture lands of their cities, in every city, there were men who were mentioned by name, to give portions to all the males among the priests, and to all who were listed by genealogy among the Levites.
2 Chronicles 32:11Doesn’t Hezekiah persuade you, to give you over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, ‘Yahweh our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria?’
2 Chronicles 32:24In those days Hezekiah was terminally ill, and he prayed to Yahweh; and he spoke to him, and gave him a sign.
2 Chronicles 32:29Moreover he provided for himself cities, and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance; for God had given him abundant possessions.
2 Chronicles 34:9They came to Hilkiah the high priest, and delivered the money that was brought into God’s house, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had gathered from the hands of Manasseh, Ephraim, of all the remnant of Israel, of all Judah and Benjamin, and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
2 Chronicles 34:10They delivered it into the hands of the workmen who had the oversight of Yahweh’s house; and the workmen who labored in Yahweh’s house gave it to mend and repair the house.
2 Chronicles 34:10They delivered it into the hands of the workmen who had the oversight of Yahweh’s house; and the workmen who labored in Yahweh’s house gave it to mend and repair the house.
2 Chronicles 34:11They gave it to the carpenters and to the builders, to buy cut stone and timber for couplings, and to make beams for the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed.
2 Chronicles 34:15Hilkiah answered Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the book of the law in Yahweh’s house.” So Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.
2 Chronicles 34:16Shaphan carried the book to the king, and moreover brought back word to the king, saying, “All that was committed to your servants, they are doing.
2 Chronicles 34:17They have emptied out the money that was found in Yahweh’s house, and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers, and into the hand of the workmen.”
2 Chronicles 34:18Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, “Hilkiah the priest has delivered me a book.” Shaphan read from it to the king.
2 Chronicles 35:8His princes gave for a free will offering to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the rulers of God’s house, gave to the priests for the Passover offerings two thousand six hundred small livestock, and three hundred head of cattle.
2 Chronicles 35:12They removed the burnt offerings, that they might give them according to the divisions of the fathers’ houses of the children of the people, to offer to Yahweh, as it is written in the book of Moses. They did the same with the cattle.
2 Chronicles 36:17Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed. He gave them all into his hand.
2 Chronicles 36:23“Cyrus king of Persia says, ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given all the kingdoms of the earth to me; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, Yahweh his God be with him, and let him go up.’ ”
Ezra 1:2“Cyrus king of Persia says, ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Ezra 2:69They gave according to their ability into the treasury of the work sixty-one thousand darics of gold, and five thousand minas of silver, and one hundred priests’ garments.
Ezra 3:7They also gave money to the masons, and to the carpenters. They also gave food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus King of Persia.
Ezra 7:6this Ezra went up from Babylon. He was a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which Yahweh, the God of Israel, had given; and the king granted him all his request, according to Yahweh his God’s hand on him.
Ezra 7:6this Ezra went up from Babylon. He was a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which Yahweh, the God of Israel, had given; and the king granted him all his request, according to Yahweh his God’s hand on him.
Ezra 7:11Now this is the copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, even the scribe of the words of Yahweh’s commandments, and of his statutes to Israel:
Ezra 8:36They delivered the king’s commissions to the king’s local governors, and to the governors beyond the River. So they supported the people and God’s house.
Ezra 9:7Since the days of our fathers we have been exceedingly guilty to this day; and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests, have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to confusion of face, as it is this day.
Ezra 9:8Now for a little moment grace has been shown from Yahweh our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and revived us a little in our bondage.
Ezra 9:8Now for a little moment grace has been shown from Yahweh our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and revived us a little in our bondage.
Ezra 9:9For we are bondservants; yet our God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but has extended loving kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to set up the house of our God, and to repair its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
Ezra 9:9For we are bondservants; yet our God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but has extended loving kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to set up the house of our God, and to repair its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
Ezra 9:13“After all that has come on us for our evil deeds, and for our great guilt, since you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such a remnant,