גָּרַר
to drag away
‘to drag away’ is one of 5 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
- Hithpolel
- The reflexive counterpart of the Polel.
Form
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H1641 appears in the Book of 1 Kings — 1 distinct verse. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
1 Kings
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
גרר (gârar) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “to drag away.” With only 5 verses it sits in the long tail of Hebrew Bible vocabulary. It first appears in Leviticus 11:7. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 3 stems (Qal, Niphal, and more). It clusters with גרגר, גרגרות and גרה under a shared root. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1641 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 5
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 5 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,337
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,337 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 5 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 5 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 60%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 20%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 20%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Continuing 1×, He cheweth 1×, Sawed 1×
- American Standard Version: Cheweth 1×, He catcheth 1×, Sawed 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Chew 1×, He catches them 1×, They slash themselves 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Does 1×, He drags him 1×, It 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1641 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1641 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H1641 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1641 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each. This entry also uses one or more reduplicated stems (the Pōlēl/Pilpēl type), which for hollow or geminate roots behave much like Piel — often intensive or iterative.
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 3 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
Qal
- Impf. sf. יְגֹרֵהוּ Hb 1:15, יְגוֹרֵם Pr 21:7—drag away, fishes in net, fig. Hb 1:15 (Chaldeans, their opponents); violence, the wicked Pr 21:7. e.g. Habakkuk 1:15
Niphal
- (read Qal? Sam. יָגוֹר cf. Di) Impf. יִגָּ֑ר Lv 11:7 c. acc. cogn. גֵּרָה לֹא־יִגָּ֑ר = (the) cud he cheweth not, cf. also Dt 14:8 Sam. 𝔊 (Di) Poʿal. Pt. (denom.; so NH Qal & Niph.) מְגֹרָרוֹת בַּמְּגֵרָה 1 K 7:9 sawn with the saw. e.g. Leviticus 11:7
Hithpo
- סַעַר מִתְגּוֹרֵ֑ר Je 30:23 a (sweeping) roaring whirlwind (‖ 23:19 has מִתְחוֹלֵל). On יִתְגּוֹרָרוּ Ho 7:14, v. I. גור, גדד. e.g. Jeremiah 30:23
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
vb. drag, drag away (NH id., Arabic جَرَّ, Aramaic גְּרַר, ܓܰܪ; Assyrian garâru, run, ZimBP 102; etc.)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
גָּרַר I
- v. גָּרָה) [to produce a grating, scraping sound,]
- 1. to scratch, scrape, shave (v. גָּרַד, גָּרַע I). Sabb. VIII, 6 (81ᵃ) כדי לִגְרוֹר וכ׳ (Ar. a. Y. ed. לגרוד) large enough to scrape with it the top &c. R. Hash. 27ᵇ גְּרָרוֹ Ms. M. (ed. גרדו), v. גֶּלֶד. Keth. 60ᵃ; Kerith. 21ᵇ גֹּורְרוֹ וכ׳ he must scrape the blood off before eating the bread; a. fr.—Part. pass. גָּרוּר, v. גָּרוּד.
- 2. to drag, to move without lifting;(also neut. verb) to follow. Sabb. 29ᵇ, a. fr. גורר אדם וכ׳ one may, on the Sabbath, pull or push a couch &c. (on the floor). Y. Kil. I, 27ᵇ bot. לא יָגוֹר אדם וכ׳ one must not pull &c. Tanḥ. Thazr. 8 גְּרָרוּהוּ מקברו they dragged him out of his grave. Tosef. Erub. XI (VIII), 13; Tosef. Bets. II, 19 דלת הגֹּורֶרֶת … הגֹּורְרִים (Y. Erub. X, 26ᵇ bot. גודרת, corr. acc., v. גָּדַר) a door which drags along the ground (on opening), a matting which is moved by dragging, or large kegs which &c.; Erub. 101ᵃ דלת הנִגְרֶרֶת … הנִגְרָר. Cant. R. to II, 15 אני גוֹרְרוֹ למבולו I will drag him to the flood in which to perish; a. fr.—Tanḥ. Thazr. 9 (ref. to Ps. V, 5 יגרך) אין אתה נגרר … ואין הרעה גוֹרֶרֶת אותך וכ׳ neither art thou dragged behind (attracted by) evil, nor does evil drag (have power over) thee, nor does it dwell with thee; Yalk. Kings 231 אין אתה גורר אחר … גוררת אחריך.—Part. pass. גָּרוּר dragged along, hanging on.—Pl. גְּרוּרִים, גְּרוּרִין. Num. R. s. 18 ח׳ ג׳ eight threads dragged along (as fringes; Tanḥ. Korah 12 ח׳ חוטין). Ab. Zar. 3ᵇ, a. e. גרים ג׳ proselytes who have attached themselves but have not been admitted, v. גֵּר. e.g. Psalms 5:5
- 3. to carry with it, to cause; to affect (v. גָּרַם). Y. Hor. I, 46ᵃ bot.; Y. Pes. VII, 34ᶜ שבט אחד גֹּורֵר וכ׳ (a majority of) one tribe affects the legal status of the entire nation, i.e. the majority of tribes (seven) decides, though it may be a minority of the people as a whole. Lev. R. s. 13, end (play on gerah, Lev. XI, 4 sq.) גָּרְרָה מלכות וכ׳ carried another government after it, i.e. was followed by another oppressive government. Ab. IV, 2 מצוה גוֹרֶרֶת וכ׳ a good deed begets a good deed &c. Tosef. Sabb. XV (XVI), 6 [read:] אין גֹּורֵר וכ׳ it is not considered a corpse so as to cause uncleanness to man or vessels. e.g. Leviticus 11:4
- 4. to saw, split. Sabb. XVII, 2 (122ᵇ) a saw (may be used on the Sabbath) לָגוֹר בה וכ׳ (Ms. M. לִגְרוֹר, Mish. ed. Pes. לגָרֵר, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) to saw cheese with it. Ohol. XV, 8 עתיד לָגוֹר Ar. intended to be sawed apart (ed. לגוד, fr. גדד, v. Tosef. ib. XV, 8). Tosef. Kel. B. Mets. II, 18 לָגוֹר וכ׳ to saw off a part &c.
- 1. to be dragged, pulled. Erub. X, 11 נגר הנג׳ a bolt which is dragged along (with the door, i.e. attached and hanging down). Ib. 101ᵃ, v. supra. Tanḥ. Thazr. 9, v. supra. Bets. II, 10 (23ᵇ) אינה נִגְרֶרֶת; Bets. אין נִגְרָרִין must not be dragged or pulled, a. fr.
- 2. to be scraped, planed. B. Kam. 119ᵇ הנ׳ במגירה shavings, opp. נפסק במגירה chips.—Nidd. 55ᵇ נִגְרָרִין דרך הפה (secretions of the nose) scraped (discharged) through the mouth (v. גָּרַף).
- 1. to drag. Pes. IV, 9 (56ᵃ) ג׳ עצמות וכ׳ he had the bones of his father carried out on a bed of ropes. Pes. I, 2 (9ᵃ); a. fr.—Tosef. Sabb. VI (VII), 1 (a superstitious custom) המְגָרֶרֶת בנה וכ׳ Var. (ed. Zuck. המגוררת) one who drags her son among the dead (to the cemetery).
- 2. to scrape, plane. Ib. XVI (XVII), 19 מְגָרְרָן he may scrape them (clean his feet of mud). Tosef. Kel. B. Mets. II, 17; Ḥull. 25ᵃ עתיד … לגָרֵר requiring planing for finish; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְגוֹרָר a) scratched, full of scabs. Gen. R. s. 64 (play on מגרר, Gen. XXVI, 26) ד"א מג׳ וכ׳ another explanation is m’gorar, for eruptions grew on him (with ref. to Job II, 8); Yalk. ib. 111; v. גָּרַר II. b) planed. Tosef. Sot. XV, 1 מְגוֹרָרוֹת במגר׳ היו Var. (ed. Zuck. היה מְגָרֵר) the stones were planed with a plane. e.g. Genesis 26:26
- to be scraped. Tosef. Sabb. XVI (XVII), 19 אין מִתְגָּרְרִין במגוררת ed. Zuck. (Var. מגרדין במגרדת, Sabb. 147ᵇ גוררין במגררת, Ms. M. גודרין במגדירה, corr. acc.) one must not be scraped with a strigil. Ib. XXII, 6 (147ᵃ) מתגררין, Talm. ed. (Mish. מִתְגָּרְדִין, v. Rabb. D. S. to 147ᵇ, note 70).
גְּרַר
- 1. to drag, pull, push.—Part. pass. גְּרִיר dragged, following, guided by. Targ. Y. II, Ex. XIV, 25 גְּרֵירַן וכ׳ (some ed. גריד׳) pushed from behind.—B. Kam. 18ᵇ בתר גופיה גְּרִירִין they are clinging to his body. Taan. 24ᵃ אנן בתרייהו גרירין Rashi (ed. גררינן, read גְּרִירִינָן, Ms. M. קאזלינן) we must be guided by their order. Ab. Zar. 72ᵇ all the wine in the barrel אגישתא … ג׳ moves towards the siphon. B. Mets. 85ᵃ דג׳ עלמא וכ׳ that all the world followed David.
- 2. to scratch, scrape. Targ. Jud. VIII, 16, v. גְּרַד.—Ḥull. 83ᵇ ולִיגְרְרֵיה ונכסי (Ar. גרד) let him scrape off the blood and cover it. Ib. ונִגְרוֹר.—Part. גָּרֵיר Ib.
- 3. to rub, to whet the appetite. Ber. 35ᵇ כי היכי דנִגְרְרֵיה לליביה (Ar. everywhere גרד) in order to stimulate his appetite. Ib. טובא גָרֵיר a large quantity has an appetizing effect. Pes. 107ᵇ מִגְרַר גָּרֵיר. Sabb. 140ᵇ משום דג׳ because it stimulates the appetite.
- to make appetizing. Esth. R. to I, 9 [read:] אנא מְגָרֵיר וכ׳ I will make their drinks appetizing (induce them to get intoxicated, interpreting Jer. LI, 39; differ. in comment.).—2) to saw off. Targ. Y. Deut. XXXIII, 20 דמְגָרֵר וכ׳ (or דמַגְרַר Af., ed. דמִגְרַר, corr. acc.) for he cuts off the arm &c. (II מַפְרַק). e.g. Jeremiah 51:39
- 1. to be dragged. Y. Kidd. I, 60ᵈ large bags דארחיהון מִתְגָּרְרָה which are commonly dragged (not lifted).
- 2. to stimulate, instigate one another. Targ. Ps. XXII, 8 מִתְגָּרְרִין (some ed. מִתְגָּרְדִין, ed. Lag. מִתְגָּרִין, fr. גרי; h. text יפטירו).
*גָּרַר II
- (fr. a Polel of גּוּר; cmp. גָּלַל) to roll; cmp. גַּרְגַּר.—Part. pass. מְגוֹרָר whirled, reeling. Gen. R. s. 64 (play on מגרר, Gen. XXVI, 26) מג׳ … שנכנסו וכ׳ reeling (after a night revel) &c.; v. גָּרַר I. e.g. Genesis 26:26
- , Hithpol. הִתְגּוֹרֵר (v. Jer. XXX, 23, cmp. XXIII, 19) to roll one’s self, esp. (cmp. חָבַט II, חָנַן, נָפַל Hithpa.) to lie in contrition, asking forgiveness. Mekh. B’shall., Vayassa 1, [read as in] Yalk. Ex. 256 (ref. to וישלך אל המים, Ex. XV, 25, as if meaning, ‘and he caused them to throw themselves down in contrition over their sin by the sea-side’). היו ישראל מתחננים ומִתְגָּרְרִים … כבן שהוא מתחנן לפני אביו וכתלמיד שמִתְגּוֹרֵר לפני רבו כך היו ישראל מתחננין ומִתְגּוֹרְרִין וכ׳ the Israelites prayed beseechingly and rolled themselves in contrition before &c. e.g. Jeremiah 30:23
גֶּרֶר
- , v. גֶּרֶד
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 5 distinct written forms H1641 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| יְגֹרֵ֣/הוּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Habakkuk 1:15 | 1 |
| יְגוֹרֵ֑/ם | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Proverbs 21:7 | 1 |
| יִגָּ֑ר | Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Leviticus 11:7 | 1 |
| מְגֹרָר֥וֹת | Verb, Poal, Participle Passive, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Kings 7:9 | 1 |
| מִתְגּוֹרֵ֑ר | Verb, Hithpolel, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 30:23 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1641, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derived from this word
- גרגר gargar H1620 berry
- גרגרות gargᵉrôwth H1621 neck
- גרה gêrâh H1625 cud
- גרה gêrâh H1626 gerah
- גרון gârôwn H1627 throat
- מגרה mᵉgêrâh H4050 saw
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 8 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 5 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 5 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
