Bible word study

Al (Strong’s H5921): Meaning in the Bible

Al (עַל) is the Hebrew word numbered H5921 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applications. In the King James Bible it is translated above, according to(-ly), after, (as) against, among.

• Original wordעַל
• Transliterationʻal
• Pronunciational
• Part of speechpreposition (prep)
• Strong’s numberH5921
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. properly, the same as H5920 used as a preposition (in the singular or plural often with prefix, or as conjunction with a particle following);

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Al appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Al (H5921) stands behind 48 English renderings in 48 verses across 16 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Genesis (21), Exodus (5), 2 Chronicles (4).

How the King James Bible renders Al, by count

• of4 of 48 (8 percent)
• beside3 of 48 (6 percent)
• from3 of 48 (6 percent)
• upon3 of 48 (6 percent)
• above2 of 48 (4 percent)
• against2 of 48 (4 percent)

Three places to read Al

• Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
• Genesis 32:11 Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.
• 1 Chronicles 9:28 And certain of them had the charge of the ministering vessels, that they should bring them in and out by tale.

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 Al 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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