The Modal 会 Occurs 1 Time in the Bible
Answering: “what does hui mean in the Chinese Bible”
Updated 2026-09-26 · plain text · JSON
HSK teaches 会 as 'will' or 'know how to'. In the 和合本 会 is overwhelmingly a noun — the assembly or congregation (耶和华的会中, 教会) — and the modal senses are carried by other words.
- HSK level
- 1
- derived from its own words
- In the Bible
- 1
- clauses
- Meet it first in
- Numbers
- where it is commonest
- How sure
- Counted
- every match was read
Practise it
Tap the words that carry the pattern.
； ， ， 。
The verse, in full
Easiest first: ranked by how much of each verse sits at or below HSK 1, the point’s own level. Colours are tones. Nothing here was written for the page — every line is in the text.
我wǒ也yě能néng说shuō你们nǐ men那样nà yàng的话de huà； 你们nǐ men若ruò处在chǔ zài我wǒ的de境遇jìng yù， 我wǒ也yě会huì联络lián luò言语yán yǔ攻击gōng jī你们nǐ men， 又yòu能néng向xiàng你们nǐ men摇头yáo tóu。
I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,
Job 16:4 · 56% of this verse’s words are at or below the point’s own HSK level
Go and meet it in the text
- Read Job 16 — where the first example above comes from, with every word tappable.
- The rest of HSK 1 grammar — the other points at this level, with their counts.
- The HSK 1 word deck — the vocabulary side, ordered by how often the Bible uses it.
What the Bible does with it
This is the clearest case on the site of a marker count and a construction count being different questions. 会 is common in this translation and almost never a modal: it is the assembly, the congregation, the church — 耶和华的会中, in the assembly of the LORD; 教会, the church; 会幕, the tent of meeting.
The Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified) uses 会 100 times. 99 of those occurrences are the same words doing something else.
Because the population was small enough, every match the rule found was read rather than sampled, and the number above is therefore a count and not an estimate. The rest are the noun, or 会悟, a single word meaning to comprehend in which 会 is not a modal at all.
What the translation uses instead is listed below with its own counts — 要 6,364 times, 必 4,584 times, 能 852 times. A reader who has learned 会 for will and then meets 必 on every other page has met the same idea under a different word.
| Word | Reading | HSK | Occurrences |
|---|---|---|---|
| 会 | huì | 1 | 100 |
The HSK column is the level data/dict.json gives the word, and it is what puts this point at level 1.
| Occurrences | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| the construction | 1 | 1% |
| the same words doing something else | 99 | 99% |
| Word | Reading | HSK | Occurrences | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 要 | yào | 1 | 6,364 | intention or imminence |
| 必 | bì | 5 | 4,584 | certainty and futurity, the corpus's usual 'will' |
| 能 | néng | 1 | 852 | ability, 'can' |
| 晓得 | xiǎo de | 6 | 116 | 'to know how', where 会 would carry learned skill |
The candidates are chosen by hand; the counts are measured, and a candidate the corpus cannot illustrate with a real verse is left out. No claim is made that they are interchangeable.
| Clause | Is it the construction? | Why not |
|---|---|---|
| 得以听见并【会悟】他的话呢 | no | 会悟 is one word, 'to comprehend' — 会 is not a modal here |
| 我也【会联络】言语攻击你们 | yes | |
| 这都是从【会中选】召的 | no | 会 is the noun 'assembly' (会中), not the modal |
| 就是从【会中选】召的 | no | 会 is the noun 'assembly' (会中), not the modal |
| 你们要【会悟】灵明 | no | 会悟 is one word, 'to comprehend' — 会 is not a modal here |
| 愿众民的【会环绕】你 | no | 会 is the noun 'assembly' (会中), not the modal |
The whole population, not a sample — which is why the count above is a count and not an estimate.
Counted — every match was checked
The rule: 会 immediately before a word with a verb sense. Where 会 is the noun 'assembly' (会中, 教会) no verb follows it.
All 6 matches were read in context; 1 are the construction. Checked by Claude Opus 5, reading each sampled clause in context; not a native speaker. Recall is not measured: this is what the rule finds, not everything the translation contains.
This point is HSK 1 because that is the highest HSK level of the point's own function words, as data/dict.json grades them; a word the HSK lists do not grade sends the point to 'beyond'.
Questions
- Why is the count so much smaller than the number of times 会 appears?
- Because 100 of them are the noun. Counting characters would say 会 is common in the Chinese Bible, which is true, and would imply the modal is common, which is false. The two numbers are both printed here for that reason.
- How often does it occur in the Chinese Bible?
- 1 clauses in the Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified), out of 100 occurrences of the words that mark it.
- Which book of the Bible uses it most?
- Numbers, with 2 — followed by Jeremiah (1), Job (1), Proverbs (1).
- How do you know the count is right?
- Every one of the 6 clauses the rule found was read: 1 are the construction and the rest are something else. This is a count, not an estimate.
Related reference pages
Take it further
- 97 ready-made vocabulary decks — by HSK level, by book or by topic, exportable to Anki, Pleco or Quizlet.
- Printable 田字格 worksheets — passages with pinyin, meanings and tracing rows.
- The parallel reader — Chinese, pinyin and your own language side by side, every word tappable.
- The dataset behind these numbers — plain JSON, free to reuse with attribution.
How this was measured
Edition: Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified). Every figure comes from one pass over all 1,189 chapters and 31,021 verses, 650,628word tokens in total, using the site’s own segmentation. A construction count is published only when a hand-checked sample of the rule that found it was at least 90% correct; between 70% and that it is published as an approximation, and below it no count is published at all. Generated 2026-09-26.