Properly, to sigh , i.e. breathe strongly; by implication, to be sorry , i.e. (in a favorable sense) to pity , console or (reflexively) rue ; or (unfavorably) to avenge (oneself)
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through the Connect page. Screenshots are helpful.
נָחַם is one of the most emotionally and theologically complex verbs in the Hebrew Bible. In its Piel stem it means to comfort or console — it is the verb of genuine pastoral presence with someone in sorrow.
Reader summary
Full entry for נָחַם (H5162) · Open the biblical lexicon
נָחַם is one of the most emotionally and theologically complex verbs in the Hebrew Bible. In its Piel stem it means to comfort or console — it is the verb of genuine pastoral presence with someone in sorrow.
The BSB source-word alignment has 108 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include relented (5), Comfort (4), comforters (4), and relent (3), relent (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 5:29. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (17), Jeremiah (14), Psalms (12), Genesis (9).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
נָחַם is one of the most emotionally and theologically complex verbs in the Hebrew Bible. In its Piel stem it means to comfort or console — it is the verb of genuine pastoral presence with someone in sorrow. In the Niphal stem it means to be sorry, to relent, to change one's mind — and it is used of both humans and, remarkably, of God. This double register — comfort and relenting — is not accidental; they are two faces of the same inner reality: a deep responsiveness to suffering and wrongdoing that moves toward change.
The most theologically charged uses of nāḥam applied to God are the 'relenting' passages: 'And the Lord relented of the evil that he had said he would do to his people' (Exod 32:14). These passages create an apparent tension with God's immutability, which the OT itself acknowledges (1 Sam 15:29: 'The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret').
The tension is not contradiction but depth: God's relenting is the expression of his faithfulness, not its revision. When the people repent, God's faithfulness to them produces what looks from the outside like a changed plan — but what is actually the consistent operation of his covenant commitment. The comfort register of nāḥam reaches its greatest expression in Isaiah 40-55, where the word 'comfort' (naḥamû) opens the entire section: 'Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.'
This is the programmatic nāḥam of the new covenant section of Isaiah — the divine pastoral presence that meets Israel in exile and promises restoration.
נָחַם appears approximately 108 times in the OT across its Piel (comfort/console), Niphal (relent/be sorry/change course), and Hithpael (comfort oneself/be comforted) stems. The distribution is roughly even between the 'divine relenting' and the 'human/divine comfort' uses, with significant concentrations in the patriarchal narratives, the Psalms (divine comfort in lament), and Isaiah 40-66 (the programmatic comfort of restoration).
“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.
The double imperative that opens Isaiah's new covenant section: the command to comfort is addressed to the prophetic messengers who will carry the word of restoration. The repetition (naḥamû naḥamû) intensifies the urgency: the exile's grief is real and calls for real consolation, not mere reassurance. This verse sets the keynote for the entire Isaiah 40-55 section — the section that the NT reads as the announcement of the gospel.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
The shepherd's rod and staff as instruments of nāḥam: tools of correction, protection, and guidance that bring comfort precisely because they represent the shepherd's active, engaged presence. The Psalm does not promise the absence of the dark valley but the presence of the Comforter in it. This is the pastoral grammar of nāḥam: comfort is not removal from suffering but presence within it.
So the Lord relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.
The divine nāḥam in its 'relenting' form after Moses' intercession at the golden calf. God relents of the threatened destruction in response to Moses' appeal to the covenant promises. This is not God changing his eternal decrees but God's faithfulness responding to genuine intercession — the same covenantal consistency that threatened judgment now, faced with repentance and intercession, moves toward restoration.
And he named him Noah, saying, “May this one comfort us in the labor and toil of our hands caused by the ground that the Lord has cursed.”
Lamech's naming of Noah draws on the nāḥam root: this son will bring the comfort of relief from the curse. The hope is misplaced in one sense (Noah is not the ultimate restorer), but the naming places the longing for nāḥam — for relief from the burden of human labor under curse — at the very beginning of redemptive history. The word that means 'rest' (nōaḥ) is paired with the word that means 'comfort' (nāḥam), and both point forward to the rest that the gospel promises.
“I, even I, am He who comforts you. Why should you be afraid of mortal man, of a son of man who withers like grass?
God identifies himself as the Comforter — 'I, even I' emphasizes that the divine nāḥam is personal and direct, not mediated. The rhetorical question that follows ('who are you, that you fear man?') shows how divine comfort is meant to function: when God is the one comforting, human threats lose their ultimate power. This verse is the OT background for Jesus' promise of the Paraclete (John 14:16) — the one called alongside to comfort.
May Your loving devotion comfort me, I pray, according to Your promise to Your servant.
The Psalmist grounds expected nāḥam in divine lovingkindness (ḥesed) and in God's promise. Comfort is not a mood that arrives spontaneously but the keeping of a word — God has spoken commitment, and that commitment is the basis of comfort. The theology is precise: ḥesed and nāḥam work together, as they do in Isa 40:1-2 (where comfort is announced because Jerusalem's warfare is ended and her iniquity pardoned).
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. Deep emotional reversal: from sorrow/regret to compassionate action, or from anger to retribution.
Deep emotional reversal: from sorrow/regret to compassionate action, or from anger to retribution.
properly, to sigh, i.e. breathe strongly; by implication, to be sorry, i.e. (in a favorable sense) to pity, console or (reflexively) rue; or (unfavorably) to avenge (oneself) BDB: be sorry Usage: comfort (self), ease (one's self), repent(-er,-ing, self).
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 4 selected witnesses from 108 lexical occurrence verses.
נָחַם is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Comfort signals the reversal of wrath and restoration of relationship. Isaiah 12:1-6
Signals the shift from judgment to restoration. Isaiah 40:1-11
Expresses God’s restorative mercy toward Zion. Isaiah 51:1-3
Expresses personal covenant mercy from God. Isaiah 51:9-16
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
The nāḥam theology refuses to locate comfort in the absence of pain. Psalm 23 doesn't promise the elimination of the dark valley; it promises the Shepherd's presence in it. Isaiah 40 doesn't announce that the exile was painless or that its wounds are trivial; it announces that the God who presided over the judgment is now the God who enters the grief and speaks comfort into it.
The pastor who uses nāḥam well has a word that takes suffering seriously without leaving the sufferer alone in it. The double register of nāḥam — comfort and relenting — also provides a surprising homiletical resource: the same God who comforts his people is the God who relented at Moses' intercession. Intercession works not because it overcomes an indifferent deity but because God is genuinely responsive to the suffering and repentance of his people.
The nāḥam passages in Exodus and Jonah show a God who changes course when his people change course — a God whose faithfulness is dynamic, not static.
Isa.40.1
The Niphal of nāḥam generates a theological puzzle: if God 'relents,' does he change his mind? The OT itself provides the key: 1 Sam 15:29 says God does not nāḥam like a human, and yet 1 Sam 15:11 uses the same word for God's grief over Saul. The two uses are not contradictory but complementary — they describe different aspects of divine consistency. God's faithfulness to the covenant is so complete that when people move from rebellion to repentance, God's response to them changes accordingly; this is not inconstancy but the consistent expression of covenant fidelity.
Jonah's protest that God might relent (Jon 4:2) is one of the most theologically honest complaints in the OT: Jonah wanted the punishment, not the nāḥam.
Isaiah 40's double comfort imperative is the OT passage the NT reads most frequently as gospel announcement. Matthew 3 (John the Baptist as the voice in the wilderness), Mark 1:3, Luke 3:4, and John 1:23 all cite Isaiah 40:3 as the opening of the good news. The comfort of Isaiah 40 — comfort to a people in exile, comfort grounded in God's own pastoral entry into their condition — is the theological background of the Incarnation: God does not send comfort from a distance but enters the grief himself.
Jesus' declaration of the Paraclete in John 14:16 — 'I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper (Paraclete)' — places the continuing nāḥam ministry at the center of the post-resurrection community. Matthew 5:4's beatitude ('blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted') is the most direct NT citation of the nāḥam theology: the ones who carry the weight of what is broken will be the ones who receive God's comfort — not the comfortable, but the grieving.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain