Bible word study

Chen (Strong’s H2580): Meaning in the Bible

Chen (חֵן) is the Hebrew word numbered H2580 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as graciousness, i.e. subjective (kindness, favor) or objective (beauty). In the King James Bible it is translated favour, grace(-ious), pleasant, precious, (well-) favoured..

• Original wordחֵן
• Transliterationchên
• Pronunciationkhane
• Part of speechnoun (masculine) (n-m)
• Strong’s numberH2580
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from H2603;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Chen appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Chen (H2580) stands behind 68 English renderings in 66 verses across 15 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Genesis (14), Proverbs (13), Exodus (9).

How the King James Bible renders Chen, by count

• grace38 of 68 (56 percent)
• favour26 of 68 (38 percent)
• gracious2 of 68 (3 percent)
• pleasant1 of 68 (1 percent)
• precious1 of 68 (1 percent)

Three places to read Chen

• Genesis 6:8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
• Numbers 11:11 And Moses said unto the LORD, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and wherefore have I not found favour in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me?
• Esther 7:3 Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request:

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Chen in the original Hebrew lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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