Silver (from its pale color); by implication, money
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כֶּסֶף (keseph) is a Hebrew noun for silver and, by extension, money or price. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 403 H3701 occurrences in family wealth, purchases, tribute, wages, sanctuary contributions, legal payments, corruption, and poetic comparisons.
Reader summary
Full entry for כֶּסֶף (H3701) · Open the biblical lexicon
כֶּסֶף (keseph) is a Hebrew noun for silver and, by extension, money or price. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 403 H3701 occurrences in family wealth, purchases, tribute, wages, sanctuary contributions, legal payments, corruption, and poetic comparisons.
The BSB source-word alignment has 403 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include of silver (84), silver (83), the silver (34), and silver (21), the money (21).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 13:2. Its strongest book concentrations include Exodus (41), Genesis (41), 2 Kings (40), Numbers (37).
כֶּסֶף (keseph) is a Hebrew noun for silver and, by extension, money or price. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 403 H3701 occurrences in family wealth, purchases, tribute, wages, sanctuary contributions, legal payments, corruption, and poetic comparisons. Ancient transactions often used weighed silver, but exchange practices varied across time and region.
Psalm 12:6 compares the Lord's words with silver refined in a furnace and purified seven times. The image contrasts reliable divine speech with flattering and deceptive human words. The poetic sevenfold refinement emphasizes purity; it is not a technical description of ancient metallurgy.
Proverbs 17:3 compares a crucible testing silver and a furnace testing gold with the Lord testing hearts. The verse emphasizes examination and disclosure. Other passages use refining as purification imagery, but Proverbs 17:3 itself should not be turned into a promise that every period of suffering removes moral dross.
Psalm 49 says that no person can ransom another or pay God the price of a life. H3701 is not the noun in verses 7-8, so this is a thematic limit on wealth rather than a direct keseph occurrence. First Peter 1:18-19 explicitly contrasts redemption with perishable silver or gold and with Christ's precious blood.
Zechariah 11:12-13 records thirty pieces of silver as the wages paid for the shepherd's service and then thrown in the house of the Lord to the potter. Matthew 27 narrates Judas returning thirty silver pieces and attributes its composite scriptural fulfillment wording to Jeremiah while strongly echoing Zechariah 11. The attribution and combined imagery should remain visible rather than calling Zechariah a simple direct quotation.
For the preacher, כֶּסֶף (keseph) supports teaching about real economic value, exploitation, generosity, tested speech, betrayal, and the limits of money. It should not be used to promise that suffering always refines believers or to collapse ancient silver economies into a modern financial program.
כֶּסֶף (keseph) is currently indexed about 403 times in the local Hebrew index. It denotes silver, money, or price across wealth, purchases, tribute, wages, legal payments, sanctuary contributions, temple repair, corruption, and poetic comparison. Psalm 12 compares God's words to refined silver; Proverbs 17 compares divine testing of hearts to testing metal; Zechariah 11 records thirty silver pieces as shepherd wages. Psalm 49 is a thematic wealth-ransom connection rather than an H3701 occurrence in verses 7-8.
The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace, like gold purified sevenfold.
The word of YHWH as seven-times-purified keseph: the contrast is with human words (vv. 2-4 — flattery, deceit, double-heartedness). Silver's value comes from the refining that removes dross; the divine word has no dross. Seven-times refined is the superlative of completeness in Hebrew numerical symbolism. When the congregation doubts whether the word of God is trustworthy amid the noise of unreliable human speech, Psalm 12:6 anchors them: the word is keseph, seven-times refined, nothing impure left.
A crucible for silver and a furnace for gold, but the Lord is the tester of hearts.
The keseph-refining furnace as image for divine heart-testing: the smelter's fire reveals and purifies; YHWH's testing of the lev (heart) reveals what is actually there. This is not punitive testing but revelatory testing — the same fire that reveals the purity of silver reveals the orientation of the heart. The congregation in seasons of testing (tribulation, suffering, pressure) can receive the keseph image: you are in the refiner's fire, and the purpose is not destruction but revelation and purification.
No man can possibly redeem his brother or pay his ransom to God.
The radical inadequacy of keseph for life-ransom: no person can give God enough keseph to redeem another's life. Psalm 49 is the wisdom psalm of mortality and wealth — the rich and the wise die like fools (v. 10), and their keseph cannot stop it. The psalm drives the listener to the One who will redeem (v. 15 — 'But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me'). The keseph-ransom impossibility sets up the divine redemption as the only alternative.
And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—this magnificent price at which they valued me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord.
The shepherd's despised price: thirty pieces of keseph, thrown to the potter. Zechariah 11:12-13 acts out the parable of the rejected shepherd — the price at which YHWH valued by the people was thirty shekalim of keseph (the price of a gored slave, Exod 21:32). The sarcasm is sharp: 'the magnificent price at which I was priced.' Matthew 27:3-10 applies this to Judas's betrayal payment — thirty pieces of silver, returned to the temple and used to buy the potter's field.
The exact keseph amount connects the shepherd's betrayal price to the Son's.
And He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.
The Messenger's keseph-refining work: 'he will sit as a refiner (metsaref) and purifier of keseph.' The purpose of the refining is worship: 'they will offer to YHWH offerings in righteousness.' The refiner's fire is not for destruction but for the restoration of acceptable worship. The silver-refining image from Proverbs 17:3 becomes eschatological here — the coming one will do to the Levites (the worshipping community) what the smelter does to silver: purify them until their worship is without dross.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. silver (from its pale color); by implication, money
silver (from its pale color); by implication, money BDB: silver Usage: money, price, silver(-ling).
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
כֶּסֶף is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
כֶּסֶף (keseph) names silver, money, or price without treating material wealth as either inherently holy or inherently corrupt. Genesis records wealth and purchases; Torah regulates payments, loans, offerings, and restitution; historical books describe tribute and temple repair; wisdom warns about bribery and love of money; and prophets expose corrupt valuation.
Psalm 12 uses refined silver to praise the reliability of God's words. Proverbs 17 uses the crucible as an analogy for the Lord testing hearts, while Malachi 3 develops purification imagery in its own priestly context. Zechariah 11 records thirty silver pieces as despised shepherd wages, and Matthew 27 reuses that imagery within Judas's betrayal while attributing the fulfillment wording to Jeremiah.
First Peter 1 explicitly contrasts redemption with silver and gold. Faithful preaching can affirm money's real uses and strict limits without promising that every hardship is a refining process or claiming Psalm 49 directly contains H3701 where it does not.
Ps.12.6
כֶּסֶף (keseph) denotes silver and commonly functions as money or price. Proposed connections with H3700 kasaph or silver's pale appearance are uncertain and should not drive interpretation. Many ancient transactions weigh silver by shekel rather than refer to minted coins, though monetary practice changes across the biblical periods. Greek argyrion and argyros cover overlapping silver and money senses in the NT.
First Peter 1:18 supplies an explicit silver-and-gold redemption contrast; a direct dependence on Psalm 49 should be argued rather than assumed.
Matthew 26-27 places thirty silver pieces in Judas's betrayal and the purchase of the potter's field. Matthew attributes the fulfillment wording to Jeremiah, while the amount and throwing of silver in the house of the Lord strongly recall Zechariah 11 and the field imagery recalls Jeremiah. First Peter 1:18-19 explicitly says that believers were not redeemed with perishable silver or gold but with Christ's precious blood.
Hebrews 9:12 speaks of Christ entering through his own blood rather than goat and calf blood; it does not contrast his offering with silver and gold. Psalm 49 provides a compatible canonical theme about wealth's inability to ransom a life, but the NT passages should not be presented as direct quotations of H3701 there.
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