To know (properly, to ascertain by seeing ); used in a great variety of senses, figuratively, literally, euphemistically and inferentially (including observation , care , recognition ; and causatively, instruction , designation , punishment , etc.)
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יָדַע is a very common Hebrew verb meaning to know, recognize, understand, learn, experience, acknowledge, or make known, with other senses determined by stem and context. The local Old Testament index currently counts about 953 uses.
Reader summary
Full entry for יָדַע (H3045) · Open the biblical lexicon
יָדַע is a very common Hebrew verb meaning to know, recognize, understand, learn, experience, acknowledge, or make known, with other senses determined by stem and context. The local Old Testament index currently counts about 953 uses.
The BSB source-word alignment has 946 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include know (150), I know (38), knows (36), Then you will know (35), . . . (30).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 3:5. Its strongest book concentrations include Ezekiel (99), Psalms (93), Isaiah (75), Jeremiah (73).
This entry includes 7 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
יָדַע is a very common Hebrew verb meaning to know, recognize, understand, learn, experience, acknowledge, or make known, with other senses determined by stem and context. The local Old Testament index currently counts about 953 uses. Its range includes factual knowledge, practical skill, recognition, acquaintance, sexual relations, God’s knowledge of people, and people’s knowledge of the Lord. No single contrast between “cognitive” and “relational” knowing explains every occurrence.
Genesis 4:1 uses the verb idiomatically for sexual relations between Adam and Eve. That intimate use demonstrates the word’s range but does not make intimacy the core meaning of every יָדַע. Jeremiah 1:5 says the Lord knew Jeremiah before forming him and appointed him as a prophet; the verse concerns God’s prior knowledge and choice, not a prophetic encounter Jeremiah experienced before birth.
Ezekiel repeatedly says people will know that the Lord is God as they witness his acts of judgment or restoration. Jeremiah 31:34 promises that all members of the new covenant will know the Lord because he will forgive their iniquity. Hosea can join knowledge of God with covenant loyalty, obedience, and rejection of instruction. These passages give knowing God relational and covenantal dimensions without excluding true teaching or accurate knowledge.
For teaching, יָדַע helps congregations distinguish knowing facts, recognizing God’s acts, possessing skill, and living in covenant acknowledgment of the Lord. The immediate object and construction determine the sense. Christian application may trace Jeremiah 31 and other promises through the New Testament’s explicit use rather than claiming that the verb itself defines eternal life or guarantees unmediated knowledge.
יָדַע is currently counted by the local OT index at about 953 uses, making it one of the most common verbs. Its range covers cognitive knowledge, experiential intimacy, sexual union, skill/craft knowledge, the prophetic recognition formula ('you shall know that I am the Lord'), the new-covenant knowing of Jer 31:34, and the wisdom literature's pursuit of knowing God.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
The divine yādaʿ before birth: 'before I formed you I knew you.' The knowing here is prior to existence — it is God's personal, covenantal engagement with Jeremiah before Jeremiah could have any experience, achievement, or knowledge himself. This is yādaʿ as election and commissioning: to be known by God is to be called and claimed. The same pattern appears in Paul's election language (Gal 1:15: 'set apart before I was born') and in the Psalmist (Ps 139: 'you knew my substance before I was born').
No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”
The new covenant's defining promise in yādaʿ terms: all will know the Lord, without mediated instruction, because the forgiveness of sin removes the barrier to direct knowledge. The new covenant is not primarily a new legal code; it is a new knowing-relationship, universal and immediate. This is the text that grounds the NT claim that the Spirit teaches believers directly (1 John 2:27: 'his anointing teaches you about everything') — the Jer 31 yādaʿ promise.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
The covenant consequence of refusing yādaʿ: 'destroyed for lack of knowledge.' The knowledge in view is not intellectual deficit but the relational-covenantal yādaʿ of God that produces faithfulness. Hosea's diagnosis of Israel is that they do not know God (Hos 2:20: 'you will know the Lord' is the new covenant promise; 4:6 describes the present covenant failure). The rejection of knowledge leads to the loss of the priestly role — Israel's vocation as a kingdom of priests requires the yādaʿ they are abandoning.
I will show the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations—the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I show My holiness in you before their eyes.
The recognition formula in its nations-facing register: 'the nations will know that I am the Lord.' The divine restoration of Israel is not only for Israel's benefit but for the recognition (yādaʿ) of the divine name among the nations. Ezekiel repeatedly uses the formula to show that YHWH's public acts disclose His identity and holiness before Israel and the nations.
“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted over the earth.”
The call to still-knowing: 'be still and yādaʿ that I am God.' The command to be still (raphâh: relax, let go, cease striving) precedes the knowing — the yādaʿ of God requires the cessation of frantic human activity. The verse is not primarily a call to personal quietism; it is the divine announcement that YHWH's exaltation among the nations will be accomplished by divine power, not human effort. The knowing that is called for is recognition of who is ultimately in charge.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Wisdom framing of yādaʿ: the knowledge of the Holy One (daʿat qĕdōšîm) is ʿûnāh — understanding, insight. The wisdom tradition presents genuine wisdom as beginning with the covenantal relationship with the Lord: to yādaʿ wisely is to yādaʿ the one who is wisdom's source. This establishes that the OT's epistemology is covenantal, not neutral: all knowing-of-the-world is properly oriented by knowing-of-God.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Knowledge grounded in direct perception or experience; extends to intimate relationship, care, and moral recognition.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 953 lexical occurrence verses.
יָדַע is a primitive root - no further derivation.
The word highlights moral discernment in communication.Hosea 6:1-3
Egypt’s restoration centers on covenantal knowledge of the Lord.Isaiah 19:18-22
Defines covenant fidelity as experiential knowledge.Proverbs 10:32
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
יָדַע resists reduction because it can describe factual knowledge, recognition, skill, intimate relations, and covenant acknowledgment. Some passages emphasize lived relationship with the Lord, while others concern information or ability. Teachers should challenge knowledge without obedience where the passage does so, but not construct a sweeping opposition between Hebrew thought and modern Western cognition.
Hosea’s “lack of knowledge” belongs to a covenant indictment that includes forgetting God’s law and rejecting knowledge. It therefore cannot be reduced either to missing theological information or to relational estrangement alone. Jeremiah 31:34 promises universal knowledge of the Lord within the new covenant and connects it with forgiveness; it does not abolish all human teaching, as Jeremiah itself announces the promise through teaching and the New Testament commands instruction.
John 10 and 17 use Greek knowing language for the relationship between Jesus, the Father, and his people. Those passages resonate strongly with Old Testament covenant knowledge. Their claims about eternal life and mutual knowing come from John’s Gospel and Jesus’ words, not from an assumption that γινώσκω always carries a fixed “Hebrew יָדַע sense.”
Jer.31.34
The verb יָדַע has a wide semantic range, and the Hiphil commonly means to make known, declare, or inform. Related nouns include דַּעַת and דֵּעָה, knowledge. In Genesis 2-3, “the knowledge of good and evil” is interpreted in several ways, including moral discernment, comprehensive wisdom, or autonomous judgment. The phrase should not be defined confidently as experiential knowledge of the full moral range that belongs to God alone.
Hosea 6:6 and Jeremiah 31:34 use knowledge-of-God language in covenant contexts, while each passage supplies its own emphasis.
John 10:14-15 describes mutual knowing between Jesus and his sheep in analogy with the Father and Son, and John 17:3 defines eternal life in terms of knowing the Father and Jesus Christ. Hebrews 8 cites Jeremiah 31:31-34 directly, making that new-covenant promise the clearest New Testament bridge. First John 2:27 speaks of the anointing’s teaching, but it should not be called a direct application of Jeremiah’s “they shall all know me” unless the literary case is made.
First Corinthians 13:12 contrasts present partial knowledge with future fuller knowledge; it does not by itself identify that future as the completion of one Hebrew lexical program.