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Hebrew noun (masculine) · H2993

יָבָם

yabamyaw-bawm'

brother-in-law

2 uses in the Hebrew text, one for each word STEP Bible has tagged with this key

Concordance spelling: yâbâm

Word page · Part of the concordance, one page for every word of the Hebrew and Greek text. Strong's H2993is this word's number in James Strong's 1890 index of the King James Bible.

  • 1 of 39
    Old Testament books
  • 2
    spellings

The definition in full

Strong's key (1890) · H2993

a brotherin-law

The King James renders it: husband's brother.

James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890), public domain. Strong indexed the King James text, and this site quotes his entry as that index.

Summary

yabam is rendered "brother-in-law". It stands 2 times in the Hebrew text, across one book.

  • Two of the uses stand in Deuteronomy, more than in any other book.
  • Its first use in canonical order opens the ledger below.Deuteronomy 25:5When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her.
  • The Greek text spells it two different ways.

The first use

When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her.

Deuteronomy 25:5יְבָמָהּ֙

The first use, in the order of the Old Testament's books.

Where the word stands

Two of the word's two uses are in Deuteronomy.

The other 38 Old Testament books never use the word.

What the word means

Each meaning, and the words it is translated by

How the Greek text is glossed, word by word

  • husband's brother her1
  • husband's brother my1

The words built on the same word-part

Each word below begins with the same letters this one begins with. A shared word-part shows a family. It does not settle what any one of them means, so each word carries its own uses on its own page. Scholars call that shared part the stem.

יָבָלyabalstreamUses2

All 2, in canonical order

Every use, in order

Every use, grouped by book, with its verse.

2 spellings and their grammar

STEP Bible tags every word of the Hebrew and Greek text with its spelling and its grammar. Both lists below count the rows printed underneath, written out in English, with the code beside each one as it was tagged.

How it is spelled

  • יְבָמָהּ֙1
  • יְבָמִ֜י1

The grammar of each form

  • noun · masculine singular · in construct (“…of”) + pronoun suffix · 1st person masculine or feminine singular1HNcmsc/Sp1bs
  • noun · masculine singular · in construct (“…of”) + pronoun suffix · 3rd person feminine singular1HNcmsc/Sp3fs

Deuteronomy

two uses
  • When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her.

    Deuteronomy 25:5

    • יְבָמָהּ֙yevamahnoun · masculine singular · in construct (“…of”) + pronoun suffix · 3rd person feminine singulartagged: husband's brother her
  • But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, she is to go to the elders at the city gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel. He is not willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.”

    Deuteronomy 25:7

    • יְבָמִ֜יyevaminoun · masculine singular · in construct (“…of”) + pronoun suffix · 1st person masculine or feminine singulartagged: husband's brother my

The letters

Gematria 52· 612 mispar gadol

Where it leads

How the numbers are counted

Every count on this page comes from STEP Bible's tagged Hebrew and Greek text, the same text the ledger prints. A use is counted once each time the tagging marks a word with this key.

Spellings are counted as the Greek text spells them, with the sentence's own punctuation taken off the word first, so a form that ends a clause is not counted as a second spelling.

The family is read from the lexicon by the stem the two words share, with the accents off, and a person or a place named on the stem is left out.

Hebrew and Greek text, word tagging and grammar: STEP Bible (www.STEPBible.org), Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0. Their grammar codes are written out in English here and shown as tagged beside each one.

Meaning and senses: STEP Bible TBESH gloss (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary key: Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890, public domain). English verse text: Berean Standard Bible (public domain, 2023).

Revised 2026-09-05. Every cited work, the sources registry →