גֶּ֫שֶׁם
rain
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 27 times (77%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 3 times (9%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 3 times (9%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (6%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 35 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H1653 appears — 33 distinct verses across 17 books. 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.
Genesis 2 verses
Leviticus 1 verse
1 Kings 5 verses
- 1 Kings 17:7 גֶ֖שֶׁם n c ms It happened after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
- 1 Kings 17:14 גֶּ֖שֶׁם n c ms For thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, The jar of meal shall not empty, neither shall the jar of oil fail, until the day that Yahweh sends rain on the earth.
- 1 Kings 18:41 הַ/גָּֽשֶׁם ptcl def.art + n c ms Elijah said to Ahab, Get you up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain.
- 1 Kings 18:44 הַ/גָּֽשֶׁם ptcl def.art + n c ms It happened at the seventh time, that he said, "Behold, a small cloud, like a man's hand, is rising out of the sea." He said, Go up, tell Ahab, Make ready [your chariot], and get you down, that the rain not stop you.
- 1 Kings 18:45 גֶּ֣שֶׁם n c ms It happened in a little while, that the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel:
2 Kings 1 verse
Ezra 2 verses
- Ezra 10:9 וּ/מֵ/הַ/גְּשָׁמִֽים conj + prep + ptcl def.art + n c mp Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together to Jerusalem within the three days; it was the ninth month, on the twentieth [day] of the month: and all the people sat in the broad place before the house of God, trembling because of this matter, and for the great rain.
- Ezra 10:13 גְּשָׁמִ֔ים n c mp But the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand outside: neither is this a work of one day or two; for we have greatly transgressed in this matter.
Job 1 verse
Psalms 2 verses
Proverbs 2 verses
Ecclesiastes 2 verses
- Ecclesiastes 11:3 גֶּ֨שֶׁם֙ n c ms If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth; And if a tree falls toward the south, or toward the north, In the place where the tree falls, there shall it be.
- Ecclesiastes 12:2 הַ/גָּֽשֶׁם ptcl def.art + n c ms Before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened, And the clouds return after the rain;
Song of Solomon 1 verse
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 44:14 וְ/גֶ֥שֶׁם conj + n c ms He cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak, and strengthens for himself one among the trees of the forest: he plants a fir tree, and the rain nourishes it.
- Isaiah 55:10 הַ/גֶּ֨שֶׁם ptcl def.art + n c ms For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn't return there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 5:24 גֶּ֛שֶׁם n c ms Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear Yahweh our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
- Jeremiah 14:4 גֶ֖שֶׁם n c ms Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed, they cover their heads.
Ezekiel 5 verses
- Ezekiel 1:28 הַ/גֶּ֗שֶׁם ptcl def.art + n c ms As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke.
- Ezekiel 13:11 גֶּ֣שֶׁם n c ms tell those who daub it with whitewash, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and you, great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall tear it.
- Ezekiel 13:13 וְ/גֶ֤שֶׁם conj + n c ms Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will even tear it with a stormy wind in my wrath; and there shall be an overflowing shower in my anger, and great hailstones in wrath to consume it.
- Ezekiel 34:26 הַ/גֶּ֨שֶׁם֙ גִּשְׁמֵ֥י ptcl def.art + n c ms n c mp cs I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in its season; there shall be showers of blessing.
- Ezekiel 38:22 וְ/גֶ֣שֶׁם conj + n c ms With pestilence and with blood will I enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him, and on his hordes, and on the many peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower, and great hailstones, fire, and sulfur.
Hosea 1 verse
Joel 1 verse
Amos 1 verse
Zechariah 2 verses
- Zechariah 10:1 גֶּ֨שֶׁם֙ n c ms Ask of Yahweh rain in the spring time, Yahweh who makes storm clouds, And he gives rain showers to everyone for the plants in the field.
- Zechariah 14:17 הַ/גָּֽשֶׁם ptcl def.art + n c ms It will be, that whoever of all the families of the earth doesn't go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahweh of Hosts, on them there will be no rain.
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.
At its core, גשם (geshem) means “rain.” Scripture first uses it in Genesis 7:12. It appears 33 verses across 17 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its moderately common vocabulary. It clusters with גשם, גשם and גשם under a shared root. Dig into 33-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1653 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 →
- 33
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 33 distinct verses.
- 17 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 17 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,023
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,023 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 33 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 33 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 20 verses · 61%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 10 verses · 30%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 9%
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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Rain 22×, Shower 2×
- American Standard Version†: Rain 21×, Shower 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Rain 21×, Showers 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Rain 19×, Shower 3×, Rains 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1653 across 35† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1653 across 35† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H1653 across 35† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1653 across 38† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- rain, shower
Word origin
I. n.pr.m. an opponent of Nehemiah Ne 2:19; 6:1 (in both called הָעַרְבִּי); v 2; also גַּשְׁמוּ 6:6; וּ as in Nab. n.pr. cf. Nö in Eut Nab 73.
II. n.m. Gn 7:12 rain, shower (NH id., conn. wi. above √ dub.)—abs. ג׳ Gn 7:12 +; גָּ֑שֶׁם 1 K 18:41 +; cstr. גֶּשֶׁם Jb 37:6(×2) +; pl. גְּשָׁמִים Ezr 10:9, 13; cstr. גִּשְׁמֵי Ez 34:26; sf. גִּשְׁמֵיכֶם Lv 26:4; גִּשְׁמֵיהֶם ψ 105:32;—rain, shower Gn 7:12; 8:2 (both J) Lv 26:4 (H) Ho 6:3 Am 4:7; Je 5:24; 14:4; Is 44:14; 55:10; Ez 1:28 Jo 2:23 (‖ מוֹרֶה, מַלְקוֹשׁ); 1 K 17:7, 14; 18:45 (ג׳ גדול) 2 K 3:17; Pr 25:14, 23; Ec 11:3; Ct 2:11 ψ 105:32 וּמֵהַגּ׳ Ezr 10:9 and because of the rains, cf. v 13; קוֹל הֲמוֹן הַגּ׳ 1 K 18:41 cf. v 44 Zc 14:17; Ec 12:2; גֶּשֶׁם מָטָ֑ר וְג׳ מִטְרוֹת עֻזּוֹ Jb 37:6; מְטַר־גֶּשֶׁם Zc 10:1; cf. ג׳ נְדָבוֹת ψ 68:10; fig. of blessing Ez 34:26, ג׳ בְּרָכָה v 26; of destruction ג׳ שֹׁטֵף Ez 13:11, 13 cf. 38:22.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from גשם (gâsham) (H1652) — to rain.
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.
גָּשַׁם
- v. גּוּשׁ) to make the earth cloddy (v. Ges. H. Dict.10 s. v.).—Part. pass. גָּשׁוּם cloddy in consequence of ample rains. Y. Yoma V, 42ᶜ top שנת גְּשׁוּמָה שחונה וכ׳ (sub. ארץ) a year in which the earth forms clods, then is parched so as to form scabs, and then moistened with dew; Bab. ib. 53ᵇ שנת שחונה שנת ג׳ Ms. M. (ed. שנה ג׳ ושח׳, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note), expl. אם שח׳ (היא) תהא ג׳ if it is to be parched, let it first be soaked with heavy rains; Lev. R. s. 20; Tanḥ. Aḥăré 3 (corr. acc.); ed. Bub. ib. 4.
- (denom. of גֶּשֶׁם) to be frought with rain, rain-bringing. B. Bath. 25ᵇ since the destruction of the Temple לא הוּגְשְׁמָה וכ׳ the south wind has not been rain-bringing.
גֶּשֶׁם I
- preced.) heavy, continuous rain. Taan. 3ᵇ לא אמר מוריד הַגָּ׳ if he failed to insert in the second benediction (v. גְּבוּרָה) ‘Who sendeth rain’.—Pl. גְּשָׁמִים. Taan. I, 1, a. fr. גבורות ג׳, v. גְּבוּרָה. Ib. 2 שואלין את הג׳ we insert the petition for rain in the ninth benediction, v. שַׁאֲלָה.—ימות הג׳ rainy season, autumn and winter. Ib. 3ᵇ. Toh. VI, 7, v. בִּקְעָה; a. v. fr.—שְׂדֵה גְ׳ (or sub. שדה) a field naturally watered by rain, opp. שלחין. Bekh. VI, 3 של ג׳ from fields with natural irrigation; cmp. בַּעַל. [In later Hebr. literature גֶּשֶׁם substance, v. next w.].
גֶּשֶׁם II
- (גשם, v. גּוּשְׁמָא) body, self. Dan. IV, 30.—Pl. גִּשְׁמַיָּא. Lam. R. to I, 5 לא יהבין גִּשְׁמֵיהוֹן (Koh. R. to VII, 11 גרמיהון) they will not devote themselves to warfare. e.g. Daniel 4:30
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 23 distinct written forms H1653 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1653, 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.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Derived from this word
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 5 — 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 33 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 33 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
- Genesis 7:12
- Leviticus 26:4
- 1 Kings 17:7
- 2 Kings 3:17
- Ezra 10:9
- Job 37:6
- Psalms 68:9
- Proverbs 25:14
- Ecclesiastes 11:3
- Song of Solomon 2:11
- Isaiah 44:14
- Jeremiah 5:24
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.
