זָעַם
to be indignant
‘to be indignant’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘be indignant’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”). Here: ‘pl.’
Form
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
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).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms 10 distinct
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (17%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (17%)
- Verb, Niphal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 1 time (8%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (8%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (8%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (8%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (8%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Passive, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (8%)
+2 more forms (2 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 12 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H2194 appears — 11 distinct verses across 8 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.
Numbers 2 verses
- Numbers 23:7 זֹעֲמָ֥/ה Qal impv 2ms + sfx h He took up his parable, and said, From Aram has Balak brought me, The king of Moab from the mountains of the East: Come, curse me Jacob, Come, defy Israel.
- Numbers 23:8 אֶזְעֹ֔ם זָעַ֖ם Qal impf 1cs Qal pf 3ms How shall I curse, whom God has not cursed? How shall I defy, whom Yahweh has not defied?
Psalms 1 verse
Proverbs 3 verses
- Proverbs 22:14 זְע֥וּם Qal ptcp.pass ms cs The mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit: He who is under Yahweh's wrath will fall into it.
- Proverbs 24:24 יִזְעָמ֥וּ/הוּ Qal impf 3mp + sfx pers 3ms He who says to the wicked, "You are righteous;" Peoples shall curse him, and nations shall abhor him--
- Proverbs 25:23 נִ֝זְעָמִ֗ים Niphal ptcp.act mp The north wind brings forth rain: So a backbiting tongue brings an angry face.
Isaiah 1 verse
Daniel 1 verse
Micah 1 verse
Zechariah 1 verse
Malachi 1 verse
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.
The Hebrew verb זעם centers on the idea of “to be indignant.” First canonically at Numbers 23:7, it enters the text early. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 11 verses — uncommon. Proverbs dominates its distribution — 3 of 11 verses. The verb spans 2 stems, from Qal to Niphal. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2194 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 →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,101
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,101 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 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 11 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 45%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 36%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 18%
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: Against which thou hast had indignation 1×, Defy 1×, Doth an angry 1×
- American Standard Version: Against which thou hast had indignation 1×, Angry 1×, Defy 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Angry 1×, Can i denounce 1×, Denounce 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Denounce 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2194 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2194 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2194 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2194 across 12 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.
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.
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
- 1. be indignant, have indignation, of hostile prince עַל בְּרִית קוֹדֶשׁ Dn 11:30; elsewhere of Yahweh, who is אֵל זֹעֵם ψ 7:12 (‖ שׁוֹפֵט), c. acc. of enemy Is 66:14; cities of Judah Zc 1:12; people Mal 1:4; a man Pr 22:14. e.g. Daniel 11:30
- 2. is prob. denom. from זַעַם (v. Buhl). express indignation in speech, denounce, curse (‖ יִקְּבֻהוּ Pr 24:24; ‖ אֶקֹּב and אָֽרָה־ Nu 23:7, 8(×2) (E); אֵיפַת רָזוֹן זְעוּמָה Mi 6:10 an ephah of scantiness, denounced, or cursed. e.g. Proverbs 24:24
Niphal
- Pt. pl. פָּנִים נִזְעָמִים Pr 25:23 face stirred with indignation. e.g. Proverbs 25:23
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. be indignant (cf. Aramaic (rare) ܙܥܰܡ blame, & n. ܙܽܘܥܳܡܳܐ; Arabic تَزَغَّمَ onomatop., of roar of camel, angry speech, v. Frey, De on ψ 7:12)—Pf. ז׳ Nu 23:8 + 3 times; זָעַמְתָּה Zc 1:12; Impf. אֶזְעֹם Nu 23:8; 3 pl. sf. יִזְעָמוּהוּ Pr 24:24; Imv. זֹעֲמָה Nu 23:7 (for זָֽעָמֳה Ges§ 64, (2)); Pt. act. זֹעֵם ψ 7:12; pass. cstr. זְעוּם Pr 22:14; f. זְעוּמָה Mi 6:10;—
— 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.
זָעַם
- (b. h.) to be excited, angry.—Part. pass. זָעוּם; f. זְעוּמָה; pl. זְעוּמוֹת. Num. R. s. 11 פנים ז׳ morose countenance, opp. מאירות; cmp. זָעַף.
זַעַם
- preced.) anger, displeasure. Num. R. s. 11 פנים של ז׳, v. preced. Kidd. 66ᵃ ויבדלו … בז׳ and Israel’s scholars parted under (the king’s) displeasure.
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 12 distinct written forms H2194 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2194, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 11 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 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
- Numbers 23:7
- Psalms 7:11
- Proverbs 22:14
- Isaiah 66:14
- Daniel 11:30
- Micah 6:10
- Zechariah 1:12
- Malachi 1:4
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.
