נָגַהּ
to shine
‘to shine’ 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 Hiphil verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”). Here: ‘enlighten’
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 3 times (50%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (33%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (17%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 6 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5050 appears — 6 distinct verses across 4 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.
2 Samuel 1 verse
Job 2 verses
Psalms 1 verse
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 9:2 נָגַ֥הּ Qal pf 3ms The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: those who lived in the land of the shadow of death, on them has the light shined.
- Isaiah 13:10 יַגִּ֥יהַ Hiphil impf 3ms For the stars of the sky and the constellations of it shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not cause its light to shine.
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, נגה (nâgahh) means “to shine.” It first appears in 2 Samuel 22:29. It turns up in 6 verses across 4 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to Job (33%), then Isaiah and 2 Samuel. Read the stem: it spans 2 stems, including Qal and Hiphil. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5050 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 →
- 6
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 6 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,040
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,040 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 6 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 6 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 50%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 50%
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: Shall not shine 1×, Shall shine 1×, Shine 1×
- American Standard Version: Will lighten 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Lights up 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Lightens 2×, Shine 2×, Will shine 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5050 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5050 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H5050 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H5050 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 4 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
- Pf. ועל־דרכיך נ׳ אוֹר Jb 22:28; אור נ׳ עליהם Is 9:1; Impf. ולא־יִגַּהּ שְׁבִיב אִשּׁוֹ Jb 18:5. e.g. Job 22:28
Hiphil
- Impf.
- 1. enlighten ויהוה יַגִּיהַּ חָשְׁכִּי 2 S 22:29 = יהוה אלהי יַגִּהַּ חשׁכי ψ 18:29. e.g. 2 Samuel 22:29
- 2. cause to shine (of moon) וְיָרֵחַ לא־יַגִּיהַּ אוֹרוֹ׃ Is 13:10 (‖ חָשַׁך). e.g. Isaiah 13:10
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. shine (Assyrian nagû, shine, beam, be joyful, DlHWB 446; Ethiopic ነግሀ: Aramaic ܢܓܰܗ; NH 𝔗 נוֹגְהָא planet Venus)—
— 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.
נָגַהּ
- (b. h.) to burst forth; to be bright, shine. V. גִּיהַּ a. גִּיחַ.
- 1. to shed light. Pirké d’R. El. ch. XXXVIII; Yalk. Josh. 18 [read:] היתה אבנו מַגִּיהָה את אורה its (the tribe’s) jewel shed its light; a. e.
- 2. (cmp. Hif. of נָבַט) to look over; to revise a manuscript, to correct, restore (when faded). Ber. 13ᵃ בקורא להַגִּיהַּ when he reads for the sake of revising. Y. Sabb. VII, 10ᵇ bot. (in a misplaced passage) אם להגיה כדי להגיה וכ׳ (not להגות) if (he carries ink) for the purpose of correcting, (he is guilty when carrying) enough to correct one letter. Keth. 106ᵃ מַגִּיהֵי ספרים וכ׳ the official revisers of Biblical manuscripts; Y. Shek. IV, 48ᵃ top מַגִּיהֵי ספר העזרה (Bab. ed. Var. עזרא, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) the revisers of the Temple manuscript. M. Kat. III, 4 (18ᵇ) אין מַגִּיהִין אות אחת אפי׳ בספרי העזרה Ms. M. (ed. בספר עזרא, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) we dare not (during the festive week) correct (restore) one letter even in the Temple books (ed. in the manuscript named after Ezra). Meg. II, 2 היה … ומַגִּיהָהּ if he recited the Book of Esther while he was writing or teaching or correcting it; a. fr.—Part. pass. מוּגָּהּ revised, correct. Pes. 112ᵃ כשאתה … למדהו בספר מ׳ when thou teachest thy son, teach him from a corrected book. Keth. 19ᵇ ספר שאינו מ׳ an unrevised Bible manuscript.
נְגַהּ
- 1. same, to be bright, shine. Yoma 28ᵇ אי הכי נ׳ ליה טובא (Ms. M. נַגְהָא, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) if that is so (that it was the time for working men to go to their labors), it must have been bright day-light (sunrise). M. Kat. 16ᵇ לא נ׳ לך לישרי לי מר בתיגראי (or בתיגרי, not בתיגריה, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note; Ms. M. נהגא a. differ. version; ed. Ven. נגיחא, v. נְגַח) is it (the case you have been thinking of) not yet clear to you? Attend, sir, now to my case (differ. interpret. in Rashi).
- 2. (denom. of נַגְהֵי) to get dark, to be belated. Taan. 24ᵃ נ׳ להו וכ׳ night set in, and no food was brought to them. Ib. האי דנְגַהְנָא (differ. in Ms. M.) the reason why I am late. Sabb. 10ᵃ נ׳ לצלויי the time for the evening prayer arrived (Rashi: he delayed).—[Y. Dem. II, 22ᶜ נגיהין, read: נְהִיגִין.]
- to dwell until late. Nidd. 65ᵇ דמַגְּהֵי ביה טפי וכ׳ Var. (v. גִּיחַ) they protract their negotiations before they sign.
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 5 distinct written forms H5050 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| יַגִּ֥יהַּ | Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | 2 Samuel 22:29 | 2 |
| יִ֝גַּ֗הּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Job 18:5 | 1 |
| יַגִּ֥יהַ | Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Isaiah 13:10 | 1 |
| נָ֣גַֽהּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Job 22:28 | 1 |
| נָגַ֥הּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Isaiah 9:2 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5050, 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 5 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 6 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.
