גֶּ֫שֶׁם
rain
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
- 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).
Every verse where H1653 appears in the Book of Song of Solomon — 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.
Song of Solomon
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.
