יָאִיר
Jair
BDB lists 5 entries for ‘Jair’ 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 H2971 appears — 9 distinct verses across 7 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 1 verse
Deuteronomy 1 verse
Joshua 1 verse
Judges 2 verses
1 Kings 1 verse
1 Chronicles 2 verses
- 1 Chronicles 2:22 יָאִ֑יר n Proper Segub became the father of Jair, who had twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead.
- 1 Chronicles 2:23 יָאִ֧יר n Proper Geshur and Aram took the towns of Jair from them, with Kenath, and the villages of it, even sixty cities. All these were the sons of Machir the father of Gilead.
Esther 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.
At its core, יאיר (Yâʼîyr) means “Jair.” First canonically at Numbers 32:41, it enters the text early. With 9 verses in 7 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. Dig into 9-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2971 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 →
- 9
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 9 distinct verses.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,481
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,481 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 9 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Judges 2 verses 22%
- 1 Chronicles 2 verses 22%
- Numbers 1 verse 11%
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 9 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 44%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 33%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 22%
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†: Jair 9×
- American Standard Version†: Jair 9×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Jair 8×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Jair 9×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2971 across 9† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2971 across 9† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2971 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2971 across 10† 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.
Senses in the full BDB
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.
- 1. son of Manasseh Nu 32:41(×2) Dt 3:14(×2) Jos 13:30 1 K 4:13 1 Ch 2:22, 23. e.g. Numbers 32:41
- 2. a judge in Gilead Ju 10:3, 4, 5. e.g. Judges 10:3
- 3. father of Mordecai Est 2:5. e.g. Esther 2:5
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
I. n.pr.m. (he enlightens, or one giving light).
II. v. sub אור p. 22b supr.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אור (ʼôwr) (H215) — to shine.
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.
יָאִיר
- (b. h.) pr. n. m. Jair,
- 1. son of Manasseh. B. Bath. 121ᵇ. Num. R. s. 14; a. e.
- 2. J. the Gileadite. B. Bath. 113ᵃ.—Denom. יָאִירִי, ch. יָאִירָאָה m. Jairite. Targ. II Sam. XX, 26 (missing in ed. Lag.).—Cant. R. to I, 2ᵇ; Erub. 63ᵃ; a. e.
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 8 distinct written forms H2971 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| יָאִ֧יר | Noun, Proper | Esther 2:5 | 2 |
| וְ/יָאִ֤יר | Noun, Proper | Numbers 32:41 | 1 |
| יָאִ֑יר | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:22 | 1 |
| יָאִ֔יר | Noun, Proper | Judges 10:5 | 1 |
| יָאִ֖יר | Noun, Proper | Judges 10:3 | 1 |
| יָאִ֛יר | Noun, Proper | Joshua 13:30 | 1 |
| יָאִ֣יר | Noun, Proper | Deuteronomy 3:14 | 1 |
| יָאִ֨יר | Noun, Proper | 1 Kings 4:13 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2971, 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 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.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Jair). 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
Enlightener. (1.) The son of Segub. He was brought up with his mother in Gilead, where he had possessions (1 Chr. 2:22). He distinguished himself in an expedition against Bashan, and settled in the part of Argob on the borders of Gilead. The small towns taken by him there are called Havoth-jair, i.e., "Jair's villages" (Num. 32:41; Deut. 3:14; Josh. 13:30).
(2.) The eighth judge of Israel, which he ruled for twenty-two years. His opulence is described in Judg. 10:3-5. He had thirty sons, each riding on "ass colts." They had possession of thirty of the sixty cities (1 Kings 4:13; 1 Chr. 2:23) which formed the ancient Havoth-jair.
(3.) A Benjamite, the father of Mordecai, Esther's uncle (Esther 2:5).
(4.) The father of Elhanan, who slew Lahmi, the brother of Goliath (1 Chr. 20:5).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(enlightener).
+ A man who on his father's side was descended from Judah, and on his mother's from Manasseh. (B.C. 1451.) During, the conquest he took the whole of the tract of Argob (3:14) and in addition possessed himself of some nomad villages in Gilead, which he called after his own name Havoth-Jair. (Numbers 32:41; 1 Chronicles 2:23) + JAIR THE GILEADITE, who judged Israel for two-and-twenty years. (Judges 10:3-5) (B.C. 1160.) He had thirty sons, and possessed thirty cities in the land of Gilead, which like those of their namesakes were called Havoth-jair. + A Benjamite, son of Kish and father of Mordecai. (Esther 2:5) (B.C. before 598.) + The father of Elhanan, one of the heroes of David's army. (1 Chronicles 20:6)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
Jairus, my light; who diffuses light
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 9 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 9 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.
