נֵר
Ner
BDB lists 3 entries for ‘Ner’ 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 H5369 appears — 16 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.
1 Samuel 4 verses
- 1 Samuel 14:50 נֵ֖ר n Proper and the name of Saul's wife was Ahinoam the daughter of Ahimaaz. The name of the captain of his host was Abner the son of Ner, Saul's uncle.
- 1 Samuel 14:51 וְ/נֵ֥ר conj + n Proper Kish was the father of Saul; and Ner the father of Abner was the son of Abiel.
- 1 Samuel 26:5 נֵ֖ר n Proper David arose, and came to the place where Saul had encamped; and David saw the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner, the captain of his host: and Saul lay within the place of the wagons, and the people were encamped round about him.
- 1 Samuel 26:14 נֵר֙ n Proper and David cried to the people, and to Abner the son of Ner, saying, Don't you answer, Abner? Then Abner answered, Who are you who cries to the king?
2 Samuel 6 verses
- 2 Samuel 2:8 נֵ֔ר n Proper Now Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul's host, had taken Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim;
- 2 Samuel 2:12 נֵ֔ר n Proper Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon.
- 2 Samuel 3:23 נֵר֙ n Proper When Joab and all the host who was with him had come, they told Joab, saying, Abner the son of Ner came to the king, and he has sent him away, and he is gone in peace.
- 2 Samuel 3:25 נֵ֔ר n Proper You know Abner the son of Ner, that he came to deceive you, and to know your going out and your coming in, and to know all that you do.
- 2 Samuel 3:28 נֵֽר n Proper Afterward, when David heard it, he said, I and my kingdom are guiltless before Yahweh forever of the blood of Abner the son of Ner:
- 2 Samuel 3:37 נֵֽר n Proper So all the people and all Israel understood that day that it was not of the king to kill Abner the son of Ner.
1 Kings 2 verses
- 1 Kings 2:5 נֵ֜ר n Proper Moreover you know also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, even what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner, and to Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war on his sash that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet.
- 1 Kings 2:32 נֵר֙ n Proper Yahweh will return his blood on his own head, because he fell on two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, and my father David didn't know it, [to wit], Abner the son of Ner, captain of the host of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the host of Judah.
1 Chronicles 4 verses
- 1 Chronicles 8:33 וְ/נֵר֙ conj + n Proper Ner became the father of Kish; and Kish became the father of Saul; and Saul became the father of Jonathan, and Malchishua, and Abinadab, and Eshbaal.
- 1 Chronicles 9:36 וְ/נֵ֖ר conj + n Proper and his firstborn son Abdon, and Zur, and Kish, and Baal, and Ner, and Nadab,
- 1 Chronicles 9:39 וְ/נֵר֙ conj + n Proper Ner became the father of Kish; and Kish became the father of Saul; and Saul became the father of Jonathan, and Malchishua, and Abinadab, and Eshbaal.
- 1 Chronicles 26:28 נֵ֔ר n Proper All that Samuel the seer, and Saul the son of Kish, and Abner the son of Ner, and Joab the son of Zeruiah, had dedicated, whoever had dedicated anything, it was under the hand of Shelomoth, and of his brothers.
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.
נר (Nêr) is a Hebrew name most often rendered “Ner.” It first appears in 1 Samuel 14:50. Spanning 16 verses in 4 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. 2 Samuel dominates its distribution — 6 of 16 verses. The sections below give every occurrence and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5369 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 →
- 16
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 16 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,752
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,752 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 16 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 2 Samuel 6 verses 38%
- 1 Samuel 4 verses 25%
- 1 Chronicles 4 verses 25%
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 16 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 12 verses · 75%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 25%
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†: Ner 16×
- American Standard Version†: Ner 16×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Ner 16×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Ner 16×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5369 across 16† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5369 across 16† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5369 across 16† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5369 across 16† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 2 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. father of Abner 1 S 14:50, 51; 26:5, 14 2 S 2:8, 12; 3:23, 25, 28, 37 1 K 2:5, 32; 1 Ch 26:28. e.g. 1 Samuel 14:50
- 2. father of Kish 1 Ch 8:33; 9:36, 39. e.g. 1 Chronicles 8:33
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
n.m. Ex 25:37 lamp;—נ׳ abs. Ex 27:20 +, cstr. 1 S 3:3 +; sf. נֵרִי ψ 18:29, †נֵירִי ‖ 2 S 22:29, etc.; pl. נֵרוֹת abs. Lv 24:4 +; cstr. Ex 39:37; sf. נֵרֹתֶיהָ Ex 25:37(×2) +, נֵרֹתֵיהֶם 1 Ch 28:15 2 Ch 4:20;—lamp in shrine at Shiloh 1 S 3:3; especially of lamps in temple 1 K 7:49 + 7 times Ch, and in tabern. Ex 25:37(×2) + 15 times P; cf. in Zech.’s vision Zc 4:2(×2) as token of merrymaking Je 25:10; used in search Zp 1:12, cf. (fig.) נֵר י׳ נִשְׁמַת אָדָם Pr 20:27; used in household work Pr 31:18; fig. of prosperity נ׳ יִשְׂרָאֵל 2 S 21:17 (embodied in David); also Jb 18:6; 21:17; 29:3 ψ 18:29 = 2 S 22:29, ψ 132:17 Pr 13:9; 20:20; 24:20; of God’s word as a guide ψ 119:105, cf. Pr 6:23.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from ניר (nîyr) (H5216) — lamp.
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.
נֵר
- c. (b. h.; v. נוּר) light. Sabb. 22ᵇ; Men. 86ᵇ נר מערבי שנותנין וכ׳ the westernmost light (on the candlestick in the Temple) into which as much oil was put as all the others together contained. Sabb. 22ᵃ מנר לנר מדליקין you may light one Ḥanuckah light on the other; a. v. fr.—Ber. 28ᵇ, a. e. נר ישראל light of Israel (great scholar).—Ex. R. s. 36 נֵרִי my (the Lord’s) light (the Law), נֵרְךָ thy (man’s) light (the soul); Lev. R. s. 31 נֵרִי (the Lord’s light in the Temple).—Pl. נֵרוֹת. Tam. VI, 1 שני נ׳ מזרחיים (Talm. ed. שתי נ׳ מערביים, corr. acc.) the two easternmost lights. Ib. III, 9 (30ᵇ) שתי נ׳ מזרחיות (Talm. ed. ב׳ נ׳ מערבית, read מערביות or מערביים); a. fr.
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 H5369 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| נֵ֔ר | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 26:28 | 4 |
| נֵר֙ | Noun, Proper | 1 Kings 2:32 | 3 |
| וְ/נֵר֙ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 8:33 | 2 |
| נֵ֖ר | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 14:50 | 2 |
| נֵֽר | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 3:28 | 2 |
| וְ/נֵ֖ר | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 9:36 | 1 |
| וְ/נֵ֥ר | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 14:51 | 1 |
| נֵ֜ר | Noun, Proper | 1 Kings 2:5 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5369, 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
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 6 — 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 (Ner). 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
Light, the father of Kish (1 Chr. 8:33). 1 Sam. 14:51 should be read, "Kish, the father of Saul, and Ner, the father of Abner, were the sons of Abiel." And hence this Kish and Ner were brothers, and Saul and Abner were first cousins (comp. 1 Chr. 9:36).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(a light or lamp), son of Jehiel, according to (1 Chronicles 8:33) father of Abner, and grandfather of King Saul. (B.C. 1140.) Abner was, therefore, uncle to Saul, as is expressly stated in (1 Samuel 14:50)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
a lamp; new-tilled land
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 16 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 16 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.
