H3563 — כּוֹס (kôwç)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H3563
Original: כּוֹס
Transliteration: kôwç (kos)
Pronunciation: koce
Part of Speech: Masculine/feminine noun (n-f)
Root: From an unused root meaning "to hold together"
Occurrences: 29 unique verses (38 tokens)
Books: 13
First Occurrence: Gen 40:11 — "And Pharaoh's cup [was] in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup..."
Hapax Legomenon: No

Lexicon Definition¶

From an unused root meaning to hold together; a cup (as a container), often figuratively, a lot (as if a potion); also some unclean bird, probably an owl (perhaps from the cup-like cavity of its eye):—cup, (small) owl.

Note: This is a homonymic entry. The lexicon treats kos "cup" and kos "owl" as a single head-word because the forms are identical, but the referents are unrelated. The owl meaning occurs only 3x (Lev 11:17; Deut 14:16; Psa 102:6); the cup meaning accounts for the remaining 26 verses.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Verses	%
the cup	10	34.5%
cup / a cup / her cup / my cup / of his own cup / of their cup	11	37.9%
of the cup / in the cup / with the cup / and of my cup / and cups / of a cup	8	~27%
The little owl / like an owl	2	6.9%
(non-content fragments: "And", "a", "of", "and")	—	—

Total cup-sense: ~26 verses (~90%). Owl-sense: 3 verses (~10%).

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Habakkuk	1	1.8
Lamentations	1	0.6
Jeremiah	7	0.5
Genesis	3	0.2
Ezekiel	3	0.2
Psalms	6	0.2
Isaiah	2	0.2
Leviticus	1	0.1
Deuteronomy	1	0.1
2 Samuel	1	0.1
1 Kings	1	0.1
2 Chronicles	1	0.1
Proverbs	1	0.1

Pattern: Highest density in the prophets (Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Lamentations) — where the figurative "cup of wrath/fury" imagery dominates. Concentration in Jeremiah (7x) reflects the Jer 25 cup-of-the-LORD's-fury oracle. Psalms contributes 6 verses spanning the full semantic range (cup of salvation, cup of wrath, owl). Genesis usage is narrative (Joseph and Pharaoh's cup). Absent from the Torah except for three incidental uses.

Semantic Categories¶

1. Literal Drinking Vessel (narrative / descriptive)¶

Gen 40:11 — "Pharaoh's cup [was] in my hand... I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand" (the cupbearer's cup)
Gen 40:13, 21 — restoration of the chief butler "and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand"
2 Sam 12:3 — the poor man's ewe lamb "drank of his own cup" (tenderness imagery)
Jer 35:5 — "pots full of wine, and cups" set before the Rechabites

2. Architectural Form (cup-shaped flower on the Menorah/Sea)¶

1 Kgs 7:26 — the molten sea: "the brim thereof was wrought like the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies"
2 Chr 4:5 — parallel: "the brim of it like the work of the brim of a cup"

3. Cup as Portion / Lot / Destiny¶

Psa 16:5 — "The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup"
Psa 11:6 — "fire and brimstone... the portion of their cup" (negative destiny)
Psa 23:5 — "my cup runneth over" (blessing, abundance, covenant hospitality)
Psa 116:13 — "I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD"

4. Cup of Divine Wrath / Fury / Judgment¶

Psa 75:8 — "in the hand of the LORD there is a cup... the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them"
Isa 51:17 — Jerusalem "hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury... the cup of trembling"
Isa 51:22 — "I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling... the cup of my fury"
Jer 25:15 — "Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations... to drink it"
Jer 25:17, 28 — the prophet makes the nations drink
Jer 49:12 — "they whose judgment was not to drink of the cup have assuredly drunken"
Jer 51:7 — "Babylon [hath been] a golden cup in the LORD'S hand, that made all the earth drunken"
Lam 4:21 — "the cup also shall pass through unto thee (Edom); thou shalt be drunken"
Ezk 23:31 — "I give her cup into thine hand"
Ezk 23:32-33 — "thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup... the cup of astonishment and desolation"
Hab 2:16 — "the cup of the LORD'S right hand shall be turned unto thee"

5. Wine-Cup of Folly (wisdom warning)¶

Prov 23:31 — "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup"

6. Unclean Bird (owl) — Homonym¶

Lev 11:17 — "the little owl (kos)" listed among unclean birds
Deut 14:16 — "the little owl" (parallel)
Psa 102:6 — "I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl (kos) of the desert" (imagery of desolation)

7. Consolation Cup (mourning) — disputed¶

Jer 16:7 — "neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother" (funerary custom)

Common Collocations¶

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrences	Typical Pattern
יְהֹוָה (YHVH)	H3068	11x (38%)	"cup in the hand of the LORD" / "cup of the LORD's fury"
יָד (yad, hand)	H3027	10x (34%)	"cup in the hand of" — giving, taking, delivering the cup
שָׁתָה (shathah, drink)	H8354	10x (34%)	"drink the cup" — the governing verb
נָתַן (nathan, give)	H5414	6x (21%)	"give her cup into thine hand" (the cup transferred)
יַיִן (yayin, wine)	H3196	5x (17%)	"wine cup of this fury" — the cup's contents
לָקַח (laqach, take)	H3947	5x (17%)	"take the cup" — recipient action
שָׁקָה (shaqah, cause to drink)	H8248	3x (10%)	causative — making nations drink
חֵמָה (chemah, fury)	H2534	3x (10%)	"cup of his fury" — construct qualifier
גּוֹי (gowy, nation)	H1471	3x (10%)	cup given to the nations
אֶרֶץ (erets, earth/land)	H776	3x (10%)	the earth drinks the cup
כּוּל (kul, contain)	H3557	3x (10%)	cognate root family ("hold together")
פַּרְעֹה (Pharaoh)	H6547	3x (10%)	Gen 40 narrative cluster
אָחוֹת (achoth, sister)	H269	3x (10%)	Ezk 23 "thy sister's cup"

Dominant collocational frame: YHVH + yad + shathah + kos — "the LORD's cup in the hand, to drink" — which anchors the wrath-cup oracle pattern.

Word Family / Cognates¶

H3557 כּוּל (kul) — verb: to hold, contain, sustain. Shares the semantic field of "container" (the root sense behind kos).

Synonyms¶

No synonyms were returned by search_relationships.py for H3563.

Antonyms¶

No antonyms were returned by search_relationships.py for H3563.

Easily Confused Words¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
גְּבִיעַ (gebia)	H1375	"cup" (3v overlap)	Specifically a bowl-shaped or goblet vessel (Joseph's silver divining cup in Gen 44; menorah cup-ornament in Exo 25); more technical/ornamental. Kos is the generic drinking cup.
ποτήριον (poterion)	G4221	NT Greek "cup" (24v in NT)	The NT counterpart; LXX uses it to translate kos in the vast majority of cases. Picks up the full OT wrath-cup theology in NT passages (Matt 26:39; Mark 10:38; Rev 14:10).
מִזְרָק (mizraq)	H4219	liturgical "bowl"	A sacrificial sprinkling basin, not a drinking cup.

LXX Overlap (Greek words mapping to kos)¶

G4221 (poterion) — primary; direct one-to-one equivalent. All wrath-cup prophetic passages.
G4095 (pinō, to drink) — governing verb rather than cup itself; surfaces when LXX reshapes syntax.
G3631 (oinos, wine) — when the cup's contents are named.

LXX Mapping¶

Greek Equivalent	Strong's	Co-occ	PMI	Notes
ποτήριον (poterion)	G4221	26	9.50	Dominant equivalent — near-one-to-one mapping; carries the full wrath-cup/salvation-cup theology into Koine
πίνω (pinō)	G4095	10	5.22	Governing verb "to drink" — paired whenever the drinking act is named
μεθύω (methyō)	G3184	4	6.25	"To be drunken" — wrath-cup consequence (Jer 25, 51; Lam 4)
οἶνος (oinos)	G3631	5	4.52	The wine inside the cup (Jer 25:15; Psa 75:8)
χείρ (cheir)	G5495	11	2.61	"Hand" — the cup-in-the-hand frame
ἀποκαθίστημι (apokathistēmi)	G600	3	6.29	Gen 40 cluster — "restore" the cupbearer
ποτίζω (potizō)	G4222	3	5.39	Causative "cause to drink" — nations made to drink

The kos → poterion bridge is one of the strongest cross-testament equivalences in the entire lexicon (PMI 9.50, co-occurrence 26 of 29 verses).

Semantic Domains¶

UBS / Relationship Domains¶

[001002008001003] Containers — the primary relationship domain for the dominant "cup" sense, with neighbors such as H18 אֵבוּס, H101 אַגָּן, H105 אֲגַרְטָל, and H178 אֹוב.
[001002006005] Birds — the homonymic "owl" sense is also preserved in search_relationships.py, alongside H344/H345 אַיָּה, H601 אֲנָפָה, and H1469 גֹּוזָל.