Bible word study

Kaph (Strong’s H3709): Meaning in the Bible

Kaph (כַּף) is the Hebrew word numbered H3709 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as the hollow hand or palm (so of the paw of an animal, of the sole, and even of the bowl of a dish or sling, the handle of a bolt, the leaves of a palm-tree); figuratively, power. In the King James Bible it is translated branch, foot, hand((-ful), -dle, (-led)).

• Original wordכַּף
• Transliterationkaph
• Pronunciationkaf
• Part of speechnoun (feminine) (n-f)
• Strong’s numberH3709
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from H3721;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Kaph appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Kaph (H3709) stands behind 187 English renderings in 176 verses across 30 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Numbers (20), Psalms (20), Leviticus (14).

How the King James Bible renders Kaph, by count

• hands72 of 187 (39 percent)
• hand54 of 187 (29 percent)
• sole12 of 187 (6 percent)
• spoon12 of 187 (6 percent)
• spoons12 of 187 (6 percent)
• soles6 of 187 (3 percent)

Three places to read Kaph

• Genesis 8:9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
• Judges 12:3 And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand: wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me?
• Psalms 81:6 I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots.

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 Kaph 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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