Bible word study

Caphar (Strong’s H5608): Meaning in the Bible

Caphar (סָפַר) is the Hebrew word numbered H5608 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as properly, to score with a mark as a tally or record, i.e. (by implication) to inscribe, and also to enumerate; intensively, to recount, i.e. celebrate. In the King James Bible it is translated commune, (ac-) count, declare, number, penknife.

• Original wordסָפַר
• Transliterationçâphar
• Pronunciationsaw-far'
• Part of speech(v n-m)
• Strong’s numberH5608
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. a primitive root;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Caphar appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Caphar (H5608) stands behind 160 English renderings in 153 verses across 24 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Psalms (37), Jeremiah (16), Genesis (13).

How the King James Bible renders Caphar, by count

• scribe42 of 160 (26 percent)
• told26 of 160 (16 percent)
• declare20 of 160 (12 percent)
• numbered11 of 160 (7 percent)
• tell11 of 160 (7 percent)
• number10 of 160 (6 percent)

Three places to read Caphar

• Genesis 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
• 1 Chronicles 21:2 And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.
• Psalms 64:5 They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them?

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 Caphar 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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