A daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively)
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H1323 names a daughter as a person held within a family, household, lineage, or wider community. In ordinary use it identifies a female child or descendant, but Scripture can widen the relationship to daughters of a people, city, or household.
Reader summary
Full entry for בַּת (H1323) · Open the biblical lexicon
H1323 names a daughter as a person held within a family, household, lineage, or wider community. In ordinary use it identifies a female child or descendant, but Scripture can widen the relationship to daughters of a people, city, or household.
The BSB source-word alignment has 586 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include daughter (94), and daughters (72), the daughter (44), daughters (37), O daughter (24).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 5:4. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (110), Jeremiah (41), Ezekiel (37), 1 Chronicles (29).
H1323 names a daughter as a person held within a family, household, lineage, or wider community. In ordinary use it identifies a female child or descendant, but Scripture can widen the relationship to daughters of a people, city, or household. That widening does not make the word vague: the surrounding passage tells us whether it emphasizes kinship, vulnerability, inheritance, public identity, judgment, or hope.
Exodus 2:5 presents Pharaoh’s daughter as an acting person whose decision helps preserve Moses. Judges 11:34 places a daughter at the center of a father’s rash vow and exposes the human cost of treating a promise as though zeal could outrun wisdom. Psalm 45:10 addresses a daughter as a hearer who must listen and reorient herself, while Joel 2:28 names daughters among those who receive the Spirit’s prophetic outpouring.
Scripture also speaks of a daughter of Zion or of a city, using family language to describe a people whose public condition matters before God. H1323 therefore supports neither sentimental family idealism nor a reduction of women and girls to symbols. It can name a child, a descendant, a member of a people, or a person addressed within a covenant and social order.
The word itself does not settle age, marital status, moral character, future calling, or spiritual standing. Those claims belong to the passage and its canonical setting. Read H1323 with attention to who is speaking, whose daughter is named, what responsibility or danger surrounds her, and whether the expression is literal or corporate. In this way the word helps teachers honor concrete persons while also recognizing Scripture’s careful use of kinship language for communities and cities.
H1323 moves from ordinary daughter and descendant language into scenes of danger, public identity, worshipful reorientation, judgment, and Spirit-given witness. The word remains relational even when it describes a people or city, so context must determine whether the emphasis is household kinship, communal identity, or a person addressed before God.
Soon the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And when she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maidservant to retrieve it.
Pharaoh’s daughter is a socially located person who sees, decides, and acts within the providential preservation of Moses. The noun does not erase her agency or turn her into a mere royal title.
And when Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no son or daughter besides her.
The narrative identifies Jephthah’s daughter as his only child and makes her loss personal rather than abstract. Her presence tests the wisdom and cost of a vow made without faithful discernment.
Listen, O daughter! Consider and incline your ear: Forget your people and your father’s house,
The address calls a daughter to listen and respond to a new household setting. The word carries relational transition, but the verse must supply the specific royal and covenantal frame.
The Lord also says: “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty—walking with heads held high and wanton eyes, prancing and skipping as they go, jingling the bracelets on their ankles—
Daughters of Zion is a corporate expression for women within Jerusalem’s public life, and the surrounding judgment addresses pride and social display. It is not permission to turn one prophetic indictment into a universal suspicion of women.
And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
Daughters stand alongside sons among the people who receive the Spirit’s prophetic gift. The verse gives daughters a visible place in the promised outpouring without making the noun itself a complete account of prophetic office.
Behold, all who speak in proverbs will quote this proverb about you: ‘Like mother, like daughter.’
The daughter comparison belongs to Ezekiel’s extended corporate indictment, where family resemblance is a rhetorical judgment on Jerusalem’s conduct. The proverb serves the chapter’s argument and should not be detached from its prophetic context.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Daughter with expansive relational range: kinship, possession, vulnerability, and collective identity (cities, nations as daughters).
Daughter with expansive relational range: kinship, possession, vulnerability, and collective identity (cities, nations as daughters).
a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms of relationship, literally and figuratively) BDB: daughter Usage: apple (of the eye), branch, company, daughter, × first, × old, owl, town, village.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 590 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H1323 teaches readers to hear relationship language with both tenderness and precision. Pharaoh’s daughter acts when a vulnerable child is placed before her, while Jephthah’s daughter exposes the cost of a vow whose religious intensity lacks wise obedience. Psalm 45 addresses a daughter as someone who must listen and answer, not as a silent ornament. Joel places daughters among the people who will prophesy when God pours out His Spirit, giving the promise a deliberately broad human reach.
Isaiah and Ezekiel show another use: daughter language can describe the public life of Zion or Jerusalem, but the corporate expression still carries moral accountability. These passages keep the word from being flattened. A daughter is not merely a family role, a symbol of purity, or a convenient illustration. She is a person whose place in the story must be read in context.
When the language becomes corporate, the teacher should explain the rhetorical move rather than erase the concrete women behind the image. When the language is literal, the teacher should not make the noun carry claims about every daughter, every family, or every calling. The word opens a faithful path from kinship to communal identity while Scripture governs the direction.
Joel.2.28
H1323 occurs in singular and plural forms, in construct relationships, and in expressions such as daughter of a people or city. The grammar signals relationship and belonging, while the surrounding noun or prophetic image determines whether the reference is household, descendant, or corporate.
The Old Testament uses daughter language for family members, descendants, cities, and covenant communities. The New Testament continues daughter language in family scenes, healing narratives, and Spirit-shaped community life, while the gospel gives each passage its own context rather than making one Hebrew noun carry every later claim.