kir · wall, side

What it means

kir (קִיר) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “wall, side”.

Wall; side of an object.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. The wall of a house or a city.
2. The side of something, like the altar.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

Wall of a house or of a city; also the side of an object, such as an altar.

• The wall of a house 1 Samuel 18:11Leviticus 14:37
• The walls of the temple 1 Kings 6:51 Kings 6:29
• Turning “to the wall” to pray Isaiah 38:2
• The side of the altar Leviticus 1:15Exodus 30:3
• “Everyone who urinates against the wall” 1 Kings 14:10

How we translate it

“Wall” 55 times and “walls” 16; “sides” 2 when it is an altar (Exodus 30:3), though in Leviticus 1:15 it is “the wall of the altar”. The phrase “everyone who urinates against the wall” is translated literally (1 Kings 14:10): the Hebrew uses it to name every male.

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• wall ×55
• walls ×16
• sides ×2
• walled ×1

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Exodus×2
• Leviticus×5
• Numbers×3
• Joshua×1
• 1 Samuel×6
• 2 Samuel×1
• 1 Kings×13
• 2 Kings×4
• 1 Chronicles×2
• 2 Chronicles×4
• Psalms×1
• Isaiah×4
• Jeremiah×1
• Ezekiel×25
• Amos×1
• Habakkuk×1

• Exodus 30:3

  You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top and its sides all around and its horns, and you shall make for it a molding of gold all around.

• Exodus 37:26

  And he overlaid it with pure gold, its top and its sides all around, and its horns; and he made for it a molding of gold all around.

• Leviticus 1:15

  The priest shall bring it to the altar, wring off its head, and offer it up in smoke on the altar; and its blood shall be drained out on the wall of the altar.

• Leviticus 5:9

  He shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the wall of the altar, and the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar; it is a sin offering.

• Leviticus 14:37

  He shall examine the mark, and if the mark in the walls of the house is greenish or reddish hollows, and they appear lower than the wall,

• Leviticus 14:39

  The priest shall return on the seventh day and examine it, and if the mark has spread in the walls of the house,

• Numbers 22:25

  And the donkey saw the angel of YHWH and pressed herself against the wall and pressed Balaam’s foot against the wall; and he struck her again.

• Numbers 35:4

  And the pasturelands of the cities that you shall give to the Levites shall reach from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around.

• Joshua 2:15

  Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was in the wall of the city wall, and she lived in the city wall.

• 1 Samuel 18:11

  Saul hurled the spear and said, “I will strike David and the wall.” But David turned aside from before him twice.

• 1 Samuel 19:10

  Saul sought to strike with the spear David and the wall, but he slipped away from before Saul, and he drove the spear into the wall. And David fled and escaped that night.

• 1 Samuel 20:25

  The king sat on his seat, as at other times, on the seat by the wall; and Jonathan rose, and Abner sat at the side of Saul, and the place of David was empty.

• 1 Samuel 25:22

  So may Elohim do to the enemies of David, and so may he add, if I leave, of all that is his, until morning so much as one who urinates against a wall.”

• 1 Samuel 25:34

  For indeed, as YHWH lives, the Elohim of Israel, who has kept me back from harming you, if you had not hurried and come to meet me, surely there would not have been left to Nabal, by the light of morning, so much as one who urinates against a wall.”

• 2 Samuel 5:11

  Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and craftsmen in wood and craftsmen in wall stone, and they built a house for David.

• 1 Kings 4:33

  And he spoke of the trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that comes out in the wall; and he spoke of the beasts, and of the birds, and of the creeping things, and of the fish.

• 1 Kings 6:5

  And he built against the wall of the house an annex all around, against the walls of the house all around the temple and the inner sanctuary; and he made side chambers all around.

• 1 Kings 6:6

  The lower annex was five cubits wide, and the middle one six cubits wide, and the third seven cubits wide; for he had put offsets on the house all around on the outside, so as not to fasten into the walls of the house.

• 1 Kings 6:15

  And he built the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling he overlaid them with wood on the inside; and he overlaid the floor of the house with boards of cypress.

• 1 Kings 6:16

  And he built the twenty cubits at the rear of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the walls; and he built them for it on the inside as an inner sanctuary, as the Most Holy Place.

• 1 Kings 6:27

  And he put the cherubim in the middle of the inner house; and the wings of the cherubim were spread out, so that the wing of the one touched the wall, and the wing of the second cherub was touching the second wall, and their wings toward the middle of the house were touching wing to wing.

• 1 Kings 6:29

  And all the walls of the house all around he carved with engravings of carvings of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, inside and outside.

• 1 Kings 14:10

  therefore, look, I am bringing evil on the house of Jeroboam, and I will cut off from Jeroboam everyone who urinates against the wall, restrained and left in Israel; and I will sweep away after the house of Jeroboam, as one sweeps away dung, until it is gone.

• 1 Kings 16:11

  And it happened, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he struck down all the house of Baasha; he did not leave him one who urinates against the wall, neither his kinsmen-redeemers nor his friend.

• 1 Kings 21:21

  ‘Look, I am bringing evil on you, and I will sweep away after you, and I will cut off from Ahab everyone who urinates against the wall, restrained and left in Israel;

• 2 Kings 4:10

  Let us make, please, a small walled upper room and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lampstand; and it will be, when he comes to us, he can turn aside there.”

• 2 Kings 9:8

  All the house of Ahab will perish, and I will cut off from Ahab everyone who urinates against the wall, both the one kept and the one left in Israel.

• 2 Kings 9:33

  He said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and he trampled her.

• 2 Kings 20:2

  He turned his face to the wall and prayed to YHWH, saying,

• 1 Chronicles 14:1

  Huram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and craftsmen in wall and craftsmen in wood, to build him a house.

• 1 Chronicles 29:4

  three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the houses;

• 2 Chronicles 3:7

  He covered the house —the beams, the thresholds, its walls and its doors— with gold, and he engraved cherubim on the walls.

• 2 Chronicles 3:11

  The wings of the cherubim were twenty cubits in length: the wing of the one, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house; and the other wing, of five cubits, touched the wing of the other cherub.

• 2 Chronicles 3:12

  And the wing of the one cherub, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house; and the other wing, of five cubits, was joined to the wing of the other cherub.

• Psalms 62:3

  How long will you assail a man? Will you murder him, all of you, like a wall leaning, a fence pushed over?

• Isaiah 22:5

  For it is a day of panic and of trampling and of confusion from Adonai YHWH Tsevaot in the valley of Vision, a battering down of the wall and a cry to the mountain.

• Isaiah 25:4

  For you have been a stronghold for the poor, a stronghold for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the downpour, a shade from the heat; for the blast of the tyrants is like a downpour against a wall.

• Isaiah 38:2

  Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to YHWH,

• Isaiah 59:10

  We grope like the blind for the wall, and like those without eyes we grope; we stumble at noon as in the twilight; among the robust we are like the dead.

• Jeremiah 4:19

  My insides, my insides! I writhe in pain! The walls of my heart! My heart is pounding within me; I cannot keep silent, for you have heard, my soul, the sound of the horn, the battle cry of war.

And 34 more times.