H1419 — גָּדוֹל (gāḏôl / gâdôwl)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H1419
Original: גָּדוֹל
Transliteration: gâdôwl (gāḏôl)
Pronunciation: gaw-dole'
Part of Speech: Adjective; also used substantively as masculine noun
Root: From H1431 גָּדַל (gāḏal) — primitive verb "to grow, become great, magnify"
Occurrences: 533 tokens in 499 unique OT verses, across 35 books
First Occurrence: Gen 1:16 — "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night"
Hapax Legomenon: No

Lexicon Definition¶

From H1431 (shortened); great (in any sense); hence, older; also insolent:— aloud, elder(-est), exceeding(-ly), far, (man of) great (man, matter, thing, -er, -ness), high, long, loud, mighty, more, much, noble, proud thing, sore, (very).

The term spans three conceptual poles: quantitative (size, magnitude, volume), qualitative (dignity, importance, status), and intensive (loud, exceeding, vehement). All three are live options in any given context.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Verses	%
great / a great / the great / Great	354	70.9%
greater / the greater / and greater	20	4.0%
loud / with a loud / aloud	21	4.2%
high / the high	21	4.2%
elder / eldest / the elder	12	2.4%
great things / greater things / proud things	8	1.6%
mighty / of the mighty	7	1.4%
great men / the great men / her great men	8	1.6%
greatest / the greatest / the greatest of them	8	1.6%
exceedingly / exceeding	6	1.2%
sore	3	0.6%
very	3	0.6%
Other (far, long, more, abundant, noble)	29	~5.7%

"Great" dominates overwhelmingly (≈71%); the remaining 29% fans out across intensive adverbs ("loud," "sore," "very," "exceedingly"), elevation ("high"), seniority ("elder/eldest"), and dignity ("mighty," "great men," "nobles").

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Jonah	13	27.1
Haggai	6	15.8
Nehemiah	27	6.7
Malachi	3	5.5
Esther	8	4.8
Deuteronomy	41	4.3
Zechariah	9	4.3
Nahum	2	4.3
1 Samuel	34	4.2
Joel	3	4.1
2 Kings	28	3.9
Daniel	14	3.9
Zephaniah	2	3.8
Joshua	24	3.6
Jeremiah	47	3.4
2 Chronicles	25	3.0
1 Kings	21	2.6
Ezekiel	33	2.6
2 Samuel	16	2.3
Ezra	6	2.1
Genesis	31	2.0
Judges	12	1.9
Ecclesiastes	3	1.4
1 Chronicles	12	1.3
Exodus	15	1.2
Psalms	28	1.1
Isaiah	13	1.0
Micah, Amos, Job, Lam, Num, Hos, Prov, Lev	23	<1.0

Densest in Jonah (the "great fish," "great city," "great wind," "great tempest") and Haggai (the "greater glory" of the second temple). Strong concentration in Deuteronomy (Sinai as "great fire," Yahweh as "great God"), 1 Samuel, and Jeremiah (great destruction, great evil). Appears in every OT book except a handful of minor ones.

Semantic Categories¶

1. Size / Magnitude (Quantitative)¶

Gen 1:16 — "God made two great lights" (sun and moon as large luminaries)
Gen 1:21 — "God created great whales" (tanninim — sea monsters)
Num 13:28 — "the cities are walled, and very great"
Jon 1:4 — "the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea"
Josh 1:4 — "unto the great river, the river Euphrates"

2. Importance / Dignity / Status (Qualitative)¶

2 Sam 3:38 — "there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel"
Lev 19:15 — "nor honour the person of the mighty [great]" (social standing in judgment)
2 Ki 5:1 — Naaman "was a great man with his master, and honourable"
Esth 1:20 — "for it is great [the decree reaches all, high and low]"
Jer 5:5 — "I will get me unto the great men [i.e., leaders/nobles]"
Mal 1:11 — "my name shall be great among the Gentiles"

3. God's Greatness (Common Divine Epithet)¶

Deut 7:21 — "the LORD thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible" (hāʾēl haggāḏôl)
Neh 1:5 / Neh 9:32 — "O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant"
Dan 9:4 — "O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy"
Psa 77:13 — "who is so great a God as our God?"
Psa 95:3 — "the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods"
2 Chr 2:5 — "the house which I build is great: for great is our God above all gods"
Nah 1:3 — "The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power"

4. Intensive — "Loud" (Volume) / "Exceeding" / "Sore"¶

Josh 6:5, 20 — "shout with a great shout" (qôl gāḏôl — loud voice)
1 Sam 4:5 — "all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang"
Gen 4:13 — "My punishment is greater than I can bear" (intensive weight)
Jon 1:10 — "the men were exceedingly afraid" (yirʾû yirʾâ ḡəḏôlâ — feared a great fear)
Eze 3:12 — "a voice of a great rushing"

5. Seniority / Eldership (Age or Rank)¶

Gen 10:21 — "Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder"
Gen 27:1 — "he called Esau his eldest son"
Gen 29:16 — "the name of the elder was Leah"
2 Ki 3:27 — "he took his eldest son"

6. Prominent Events, Days, and Acts of God¶

Deut 4:34 — "the LORD your God... by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors"
Joel 2:11, 31 — "the day of the LORD is great and very terrible"
Mal 4:5 — "before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD"
Zep 1:14 — "the great day of the LORD is near"
Deut 29:3 — "the great temptations... the signs, and those great miracles"

7. Political / Imperial Greatness (Kingdoms, Kings, Cities)¶

Jon 1:2 — "Nineveh, that great city" (the imperial capital)
Jon 3:2-3 — "Nineveh was an exceeding great city"
Num 14:12 — "I will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they"
Ecc 9:14 — "there came a great king against it, and besieged it"
Dan 2:31 — "this great image, whose brightness was excellent"
Dan 2:35, 45 — the "great mountain that filled the whole earth"
Dan 7:2, 3, 7, 11, 17, 20 — the "great sea," "great beasts," "fourth beast... exceeding dreadful," "great words" of the little horn
Dan 8:8 — "the he goat waxed very great: and... the great horn was broken"
Dan 8:21 — "the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king" (historically identified with Alexander)

8. Greatness of Things Not Physical — Works, Wrath, Mercy¶

Deut 9:29 — "thy great power and by thy stretched out arm"
Neh 1:10 — "whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power"
2 Chr 1:8 — "Thou hast shewed great mercy unto David my father"
Psa 145:8 — "the LORD is... of great mercy"
Pro 19:19 — "a man of great wrath"
Dan 9:18 — "we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies"
Dan 9:22 — "thou art greatly beloved" (reading with cognate H1431 idiom; H1419 sphere)

Common Collocations¶

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrences	Typical Pattern
יְהֹוָה (YHWH)	H3068	166x (33%)	"the great LORD," "YHWH is great," "great day of YHWH"
אֱלֹהִים (ʾĕlōhîm)	H430	73x (15%)	"the great God" — epithet of covenant faithfulness
כֹּל (kōl)	H3605	124x (25%)	"all the great..." — totalizing scope
עַם (ʿam)	H5971	74x (15%)	"great people / great nation" — Israel or foreign powers
מֶלֶךְ (melek)	H4428	71x (14%)	"great king" — emperor or YHWH as sovereign
אֶרֶץ (ʾereṣ)	H776	68x (14%)	"the great [river/land/city of the] earth"
עָשָׂה (ʿāśâ)	H6213	95x (19%)	"do great things" — divine deeds
בַּיִת (bayit)	H1004	51x (10%)	"great house" (temple, royal house, dynasty)
יוֹם (yôm)	H3117	58x (12%)	"great day" — eschatological Day of YHWH
פָּנִים (pānîm)	H6440	68x (14%)	"great before..." — public prominence

Note the heavy YHWH / ʾĕlōhîm / melek clustering: roughly half of all occurrences sit in close proximity to a divine or royal subject, which is the native habitat of the adjective.

Word Family / Cognates¶

H1431 גָּדַל (gāḏal) — primitive verb "to grow, become great, be magnified" (parent root)
H1432 גָּדֵל (gāḏēl) — adjective "growing" (participial form)
H1433 גֹּדֶל (gōḏel) — masculine noun "magnitude, greatness"
H1420 גְּדוּלָה (gəḏûlâ) — feminine noun "greatness, grandeur, majesty"

Synonyms¶

H7342 רָחָב (rāchāb) — wide, broad; overlap at the size/magnitude end of the field.
H7227 רַב (rab) — much, many, great; close quantitative neighbor to gāḏôl's greatness language.
H1368 גִּבּוֹר (gibbôr) — mighty man, warrior; overlaps where gāḏôl denotes status, force, or prominence.
H3513 כָּבַד / כָּבֵד (kābad / kābēd) — heavy, weighty, honored; adjacent in the field of weighty greatness.

Antonyms¶

H6996 קָטָן / קָטֹן (qāṭān / qāṭōn) — small, little, lesser; the clean antonym repeatedly returned by search_relationships.py over against H1419's largeness/greatness field.

Easily Confused Words¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
רַב (rab)	H7227	"great," "many," "much"	rab emphasizes multitude/abundance (numerical or extensive); gāḏôl emphasizes magnitude/stature (qualitative or dimensional). Overlap is real but rab tilts quantitative-plural, gāḏôl tilts singular-qualitative.
רַב (rab, Aramaic)	H7229	"great"	Aramaic counterpart of H7227; used in Daniel's Aramaic chapters (e.g., Dan 2:48 "a great man"). The Hebrew chapters of Daniel use H1419.
גָּדַל (gāḏal)	H1431	verbal "become great" / "magnify"	The root verb; gāḏôl is the stative adjective derived from it. Both appear in Dan 8:8 ("waxed very great [H1431]… the great [H1419] horn").
מְאֹד (mᵉʾōd)	H3966	"greatly," "very," "exceedingly"	Adverb of intensity only; never used substantively. When gāḏôl carries intensive force ("very great"), it often pairs with or substitutes for mᵉʾōd.
כָּבֵד (kāḇēḏ)	H3515	"great," "sore," "heavy"	kāḇēḏ = heavy/weighty (honor or burden); gāḏôl = large/great. Semantic overlap at "weighty importance" but kāḇēḏ is the standard term for "glory-weight."
גָּבֹהַּ (gāḇōah)	H1364	"high," "lofty"	gāḇōah = vertical elevation; gāḏôl "high" renders status/rank-high, not altitude-high.
עֶלְיוֹן (ʿelyôn)	H5945	"high," "Most High"	ʿelyôn is specifically "upper, Most High"; gāḏôl is general greatness without directional component.

Semantic Domains¶

UBS / Relationship Domains¶

[002001001034] Large — core size/magnitude field; search_relationships.py groups H1419 with the broad "large" classifier.
[002001002012] Great — central greatness/status field; this is the clearest lexical home for gāḏôl.
[002001003012] Intense — fits the study's loud / exceedingly / sore uses, where gāḏôl works as an intensifier.
[002001001056] Stage — secondary domain reflecting elder/eldest and age-rank uses already documented above.
[002002002010] Time — broader spillover from order/age terminology rather than a core gloss of H1419 itself.
[003001007] Names of People — classifier noise surfaced by the relationship tool, not a primary lexical sense of gāḏôl.

LXX Mapping (Hebrew → Greek)¶

Greek Equivalent	Strong's	Co-occurrences	PMI	Notes
μέγας (megas)	G3173	415	5.14	Primary equivalent — the default Septuagint rendering
μικρός (mikros)	G3398	31	3.61	Appears in small/great antithetical pairs
σφόδρα (sphodra)	G4970	39	2.73	When gāḏôl reinforces intensive "very"
φωνή (phōnē)	G5456	48	2.36	In "with a great voice" (qôl gāḏôl) constructions
φοβερός (phoberos)	G5398	11	4.21	In "great and terrible" formulaic divine epithets
κραταιός (krataios)	G2900	11	3.19	When gāḏôl denotes might/power
ἰσχυρός (ischyros)	G2478	16	2.75	Another "mighty/strong" rendering
πληγή (plēgē)	G4127	12	3.08	In "great plague/stroke" contexts
παροργισμός (parorgismos)	G3950	4	4.97	"Great wrath" in specific idioms
Ἰωνᾶς (Iōnas)	G2495	5	4.30	Artifact of the high density in Jonah

The bridge to μέγας (G3173) is overwhelmingly dominant (~80% of LXX renderings), making the Hebrew→Greek pathway for this word exceptionally clean.