זְרֻבָּבֶ֫ל
Zerubbabel
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Zerubbabel’ 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
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H2216 appears in the Book of 1 Chronicles — 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 Chronicles
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, זרבבל (Zᵉrubbâbel) means “Zerubbabel.” First canonically at 1 Chronicles 3:19, it enters the text early. It appears 20 verses across 5 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. The word gravitates to Haggai (35%), then Ezra and Zechariah. Dig into 20-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2216 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 →
- 20
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 20 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,462
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,462 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 20 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 20 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 verses · 55%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 9 verses · 45%
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: Zerubbabel 18×
- American Standard Version: Zerubbabel 18×
- Berean Standard Bible: Zerubbabel 20×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Zerubbabel 21×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2216 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H2216 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H2216 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears 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 H2216 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses 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.
- Zerubbabel = "sown in Babylon"
- the grandson of king Jehoiachin and leader of the first group of returning exiles from Babylon
Word origin
n.pr.m. (according to MV perhaps = זְרוּעַ בָּבֶל begotten in Babylon, v. also Thes prob. = Bab. Zêr-Bâbili = off-spring of Babylon, often in Inscr. (MeyE. Jud. v);)—grandson of king Jehoiachin, and son of Pedaiah 1 Ch 3:19(×2) (but son of Shealtiel Ezr 3:2, 8 etc., cf. שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל brother(?) of פְּדָיָה 1 Ch 3:17); leader of first returning exiles Ezr 2:2 = Ne 7:7, Ezr 3:2, 8; 4:2, 3 Ne 12:1, 47 Hg 1:12; 2:4 Zc 4:6, 7, 9, 10; called פַּחַת יְהוּדָה Hg 1:1, 14; 2:2, 21, called עַבְדִּי (by י׳) Hg 2:23.—𝔊 Ζοροβαβελ.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from זרב (zârab) (H2215) — to dry up.
Forms in the corpus
The 9 distinct written forms H2216 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| זְרֻבָּבֶ֖ל | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 3:19 | 4 |
| זְרֻבָּבֶ֗ל | Noun, Proper | Ezra 2:2 | 3 |
| זְרֻבָּבֶ֜ל | Noun, Proper | Ezra 4:2 | 3 |
| זְרֻבָּבֶ֣ל | Noun, Proper | Ezra 3:8 | 3 |
| זְרֻבָּבֶ֤ל | Noun, Proper | Haggai 1:1 | 2 |
| זְרֻבָּבֶ֥ל | Noun, Proper | Haggai 2:21 | 2 |
| זְרֻבָּבֶ֨ל | Noun, Proper | Haggai 1:14 | 2 |
| וּ/זְרֻבָּבֶ֤ל | Noun, Proper | Ezra 3:2 | 1 |
| זְרֻבָּבֶל֙ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 3:19 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2216, 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
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 → 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Zerubbabel). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
The seed of Babylon, the son of Salathiel or Shealtiel (Hag. 1:1; Zorobabel, Matt. 1:12); called also the son of Pedaiah (1 Chr. 3:17-19), i.e., according to a frequent usage of the word "son;" the grandson or the nephew of Salathiel. He is also known by the Persian name of Sheshbazzar (Ezra 1:8, 11). In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, he led the first band of Jews, numbering 42,360 (Ezra 2:64), exclusive of a large number of servants, who returned from captivity at the close of the seventy years. In the second year after the Return, he erected an altar and laid the foundation of the temple on the ruins of that which had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar (3:8-13; ch. 4-6). All through the work he occupied a prominent place, inasmuch as he was a descendant of the royal line of David.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(born at Babel, i.e. Babylon), the head of the tribe of Judah at the time of the return from the Babylonish captivity in the first year of Cyrus. The history of Zerabbabel in the Scriptures is as follows: In the first year of Cyrus he was living at Babylon, and was the recognized prince of Judah in the captivity,--what in later times was called "the prince of the captivity," or "the prince." On the issuing of Cyrus' decree he immediately availed himself of it, and placed himself at the head of those of his countrymen "whose spirit God had raised to go up to build the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem." It is probable that he was in the king of Babylon's service, both from his having, like Daniel and the three children, received a Chaldee name, Sheshbazzar, and from the fact that he was appointed by the Persian king to the office of governor of Judea. On arriving at Jerusalem, Zerubbabel's great work, which he set about immediately, was the rebuilding of the temple. In the second month of the second year of the return the foundation was laid with all the pomp which could be commanded. The efforts of the Samaritans were successful in putting a stop to the work during the seven remaining years of the reign of Cyrus and through the eight years of Cambyses and Smerdis. Nor does Zerubbabel appear quite blameless for this long delay. The difficulties in the way of building the temple were not such as need have stopped the work and during this long suspension of sixteen years Zerubbabel and the rest of the people had been busy in building costly houses for themselves. But in the second year of Darius, light dawned upon the darkness of the colony from Babylon. In that year--it was the most memorable event in Zerabbabel's life--the spirit of prophecy suddenly blazed up with a most brilliant light among the returned captives. Their words fell like sparks upon tinder. In a moment Zerubbabel roused from his apathy, threw his whole strength into the work. After much opposition [see Nehemiah, The Book Of] and many hindrances find delays, the temple was at length finished, in the sixth pear of Darius, and was dedicated with much pomp and rejoicing. [Temple] The only other works of Zerubbabel of which we learn from Scripture are the restoration of the courses of priests and Levites and of the provision for their maintenance, according to the institution of David (Ezra 6:18; Nehemiah 12:47) the registering the returned captives according to their genealogies, (Nehemiah 7:5) and the keeping of a Passover in the seventh year of Darius, with which last event ends all that we know of the life of Zerubbabel, His apocryphal history is told in 1 Esdr. 3-7. The exact parentage of Zerubbabel is a little obscure, from his being always called the son of Shealtiel, (Ezra 3:2,8; 5:2) etc.; (Haggai 1:1,12,14) etc., end appearing as such in the genealogies of Christ (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27) whereas in (1 Chronicles 3:19) he is represented as the son of Pedaiah, Shealtiel or Salathiel's brother, and consequently as Salathiel's nephew. Zerubbabel was the legal successor and heir of Jeconiah's royal estate, the grandson of Neri and the lineal descendant of Nathan the son of David. In the New Testament the name appears in the Greek form of Zorobabel.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
a stranger at Babylon; dispersion of confusion
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 17 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 20 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.
