Bible word study

Malak (Strong’s H4427): Meaning in the Bible

Malak (מָלַךְ) is the Hebrew word numbered H4427 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as to reign; inceptively, to ascend the throne; causatively, to induct into royalty; hence (by implication) to take counsel. In the King James Bible it is translated consult, be (make, set a, set up) king, be (make) queen.

• Original wordמָלַךְ
• Transliterationmâlak
• Pronunciationmaw-lak'
• Part of speechverb (v)
• Strong’s numberH4427
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. a primitive root;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Malak appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Malak (H4427) stands behind 350 English renderings in 284 verses across 22 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in 2 Kings (90), 2 Chronicles (81), 1 Kings (62).

How the King James Bible renders Malak, by count

• reigned160 of 350 (46 percent)
• reign117 of 350 (33 percent)
• king45 of 350 (13 percent)
• reigneth11 of 350 (3 percent)
• made6 of 350 (2 percent)
• queen2 of 350 (1 percent)

Three places to read Malak

• Genesis 36:31 And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.
• 1 Kings 22:42 Jehoshaphat was thirty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi.
• 1 Chronicles 29:26 Thus David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel.

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 Malak 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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