Are unicorns in the Bible?
Are unicorns in the Bible? Yes, at least in the King James Version. The word unicorn appears 6 times and unicorns 3 times, 9 mentions in all. They sit in poetry and prophecy: Balaam’s blessing in Numbers, Moses’ blessing in Deuteronomy, God’s speech to Job, three psalms, and a judgment scene in Isaiah. None of them is a white horse with a spiral horn, and the reason is a translation decision made more than two thousand years ago.
Every verse that mentions a unicorn
These are all the verses in the King James Bible that use the singular word unicorn, quoted exactly as printed:
- Numbers 23:22: God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.
- Numbers 24:8: God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.
- Job 39:9: Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?
- Job 39:10: Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?
- Psalms 29:6: He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.
- Psalms 92:10: But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.
And these use the plural unicorns:
- Deuteronomy 33:17: His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.
- Psalms 22:21: Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
- Isaiah 34:7: And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
Read together, the verses describe an animal that is strong (Numbers 23:22), hard to tame (Job 39:9–10), dangerous (Psalm 22:21), and horned (Psalm 92:10). The first verse in canonical order is Numbers 23:22, which is the reference the word checker shows when you tap the word unicorn.
Why the King James Bible says unicorn
The Hebrew word behind all nine verses is re’em. When Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek in the centuries before Christ, a version known as the Septuagint, they rendered it monokeros, literally “one horn”. Latin translations followed with unicornis, and when English translators worked in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries they kept the familiar word. In 1611 most educated readers believed unicorns were real animals living somewhere far away, so the choice did not look strange at the time.
Why one horn? Nobody knows for certain. One common explanation is that ancient carvings show oxen in profile, where two horns overlap and look like one. Another is that translators simply reached for the most impressive wild horned animal they had heard of.
Are unicorns in the Bible in newer translations?
Newer translations go back to the Hebrew and choose a real animal. The NIV, ESV, and NASB all use wild ox in these verses, and some older revisions use wild bull. That is why the question “are unicorns in the Bible?” gets two honest answers: yes in the KJV, no in most Bibles printed in the last fifty years. The word list on this site is built only from the King James text, so it answers yes.
The most likely candidate for the re’em is the aurochs, the huge wild ancestor of domestic cattle. It stood taller than a modern bull, had long forward-curving horns, and was famous for being impossible to tame, which is exactly the point God makes to Job: “Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee?”
Nine mentions is a small number in a text of 790,705 words. The King James word count page shows how that compares with the length of each book, and why a word that appears only a handful of times is easy to miss.
Unicorns, dragons, and other surprising KJV words
Unicorn is not the only word that makes the King James Bible sound like a fantasy novel. The KJV also has dragons, satyrs, and cockatrices, all because translators chose the closest word they knew for a rare Hebrew term. On the other hand, some animals you would expect are missing entirely: there are no cats and no dinosaurs. If you want to test a whole sentence instead of a single word, paste it into the Bible word checker and every word is marked found or not found. Type unicorn on its own and you will get the KJV answer to “are unicorns in the Bible?” in under a second.
Frequently asked questions
How many times are unicorns mentioned in the Bible?
Nine times in the King James Version: unicorn appears 6 times and unicorns 3 times, across Numbers, Deuteronomy, Job, Psalms, and Isaiah. Modern translations such as the NIV and ESV use wild ox instead, so the count there is zero.
What animal is the unicorn in the Bible?
The Hebrew word is re’em. Most scholars think it meant a wild ox, probably the aurochs, a large and powerful wild cattle that is now extinct. The word unicorn came into English Bibles through the Greek and Latin translations, not from the Hebrew itself.
Does the Bible describe a horse with a horn?
No. None of the verses describe a horse, magic, or a single spiral horn. They talk about strength, wildness, and horns. Psalm 92:10 mentions the horn of an unicorn, and Deuteronomy 33:17 the horns of unicorns, plural, which fits an ox better than a fairy-tale animal.
Is unicorn in the Bible spelled the same way?
Yes, but the KJV writes an unicorn rather than a unicorn, following the spelling habits of 1611. Type unicorn or unicorns into the checker on the home page and both come back as found.