נָשִׂיא
chief
also: one lifted up, prince, captain, leader fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
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).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
21 verses where H5387 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of Ezekiel. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Ezekiel
- Ezekiel 7:27 וְ/נָשִׂיא֙ conj + n c ms The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do to them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 12:10 הַ/נָּשִׂ֞יא ptcl def.art + n c ms Say you to them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: This burden [concerns] the prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel among whom they are.
- Ezekiel 12:12 וְ/הַ/נָּשִׂ֨יא conj + ptcl def.art + n c ms The prince who is among them shall bear on his shoulder in the dark, and shall go forth: they shall dig through the wall to carry out thereby: he shall cover his face, because he shall not see the land with his eyes.
- Ezekiel 30:13 וְ/נָשִׂ֥יא conj + n c ms Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the images to cease from Memphis; and there shall be no more a prince from the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.
- Ezekiel 34:24 נָשִׂ֣יא n c ms I, Yahweh, will be their God, and my servant David prince among them; I, Yahweh, have spoken it.
- Ezekiel 37:25 נָשִׂ֥יא n c ms They shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob my servant, in which your fathers lived; and they shall dwell therein, they, and their children, and their children's children, forever: and David my servant shall be their prince for ever.
- Ezekiel 44:3 הַ/נָּשִׂ֗יא נָ֥שִׂיא ptcl def.art + n c ms n c ms As for the prince, he shall sit therein as prince to eat bread before Yahweh; he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.
- Ezekiel 45:7 וְ/לַ/נָּשִׂ֡יא conj + prep det + n c ms [Whatever is] for the prince [shall be] on the one side and on the other side of the holy offering and of the possession of the city, in front of the holy offering and in front of the possession of the city, on the west side westward, and on the east side eastward; and in length answerable to one of the portions, from the west border to the east border.
- Ezekiel 45:16 לַ/נָּשִׂ֖יא prep det + n c ms All the people of the land shall give to this offering for the prince in Israel.
- Ezekiel 45:17 הַ/נָּשִׂ֣יא ptcl def.art + n c ms It shall be the prince's part to give the burnt offerings, and the meal-offerings, and the drink-offerings, in the feasts, and on the new moons, and on the Sabbaths, in all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel: he shall prepare the sin-offering, and the meal-offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace-offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel.
- Ezekiel 45:22 הַ/נָּשִׂיא֙ ptcl def.art + n c ms On that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bull for a sin-offering.
- Ezekiel 46:2 הַ/נָּשִׂ֡יא ptcl def.art + n c ms The prince shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate outside, and shall stand by the post of the gate; and the priests shall prepare his burnt-offering and his peace-offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate: then he shall go forth; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening.
- Ezekiel 46:4 הַ/נָּשִׂ֖יא ptcl def.art + n c ms The burnt offering that the prince shall offer to Yahweh shall be on the Sabbath day six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish;
- Ezekiel 46:8 הַ/נָּשִׂ֑יא ptcl def.art + n c ms When the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of the gate, and he shall go forth by the way of it.
- Ezekiel 46:10 וְֽ/הַ/נָּשִׂ֑יא conj + ptcl def.art + n c ms The prince, when they go in, shall go in with of them; and when they go out, he shall go out.
- Ezekiel 46:12 הַ/נָּשִׂ֨יא ptcl def.art + n c ms When the prince shall prepare a freewill-offering, a burnt offering or peace-offerings as a freewill-offering to Yahweh, one shall open for him the gate that looks toward the east; and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace-offerings, as he does on the Sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate.
- Ezekiel 46:16 הַ/נָּשִׂ֤יא ptcl def.art + n c ms Thus says the Lord Yahweh: If the prince give a gift to any of his sons, it is his inheritance, it shall belong to his sons; it is their possession by inheritance.
- Ezekiel 46:17 לַ/נָּשִׂ֑יא prep det + n c ms But if he give of his inheritance a gift to one of his servants, it shall be his to the year of liberty; then it shall return to the prince; but as for his inheritance, it shall be for his sons.
- Ezekiel 46:18 הַ/נָּשִׂ֜יא ptcl def.art + n c ms Moreover the prince shall not take of the people's inheritance, to thrust them out of their possession; he shall give inheritance to his sons out of his own possession, that my people not be scattered every man from his possession.
- Ezekiel 48:21 לַ/נָּשִׂ֣יא לַ/נָּשִׂ֑יא prep det + n c ms prep det + n c ms The residue shall be for the prince, on the one side and on the other of the holy offering and of the possession of the city; in front of the twenty-five thousand of the offering toward the east border, and westward in front of the twenty-five thousand toward the west border, answerable to the portions, it shall be for the prince: and the holy offering and the sanctuary of the house shall be in the midst of it.
- Ezekiel 48:22 לַ/נָּשִׂ֖יא לַ/נָּשִׂ֖יא prep det + n c ms prep det + n c ms Moreover from the possession of the Levites, and from the possession of the city, being in the midst of that which is the prince's, between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin, it shall be for the prince.
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 noun נשיא centers on the idea of “chief.” Older and newer Bibles part ways — “prince” in the King James Version, “leader” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. It appears 120 verses across 13 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. The word gravitates to Numbers (46%), then Ezekiel and Joshua. Beyond “chief” it also covers “one lifted up”, “prince”, and “captain” — see its full sense range. 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 H5387 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 →
- 120
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 120 distinct verses.
- 13 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 13 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #332
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 332 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 120 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 120 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 64 verses · 53%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 47 verses · 39%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 9 verses · 8%
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†: Prince 43×, Princes 26×, Captain 9×
- American Standard Version†: Prince 54×, Princes 29×, All the princes 4×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Leader 42×, Leaders 28×, Prince 22×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Leader 42×, Leaders 21×, Prince 19×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5387 across 130† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 30 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5387 across 127† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 31 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 H5387 across 126† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 8 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5387 across 137† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 9 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
12 senses and sub-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 12 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.
נשיא I one lifted up, i.e. a chief prince
- 1. נ׳ בְּעַמְּךָ of any chief man, Ex 22:27 (E; human ruler, over ag. אֱלֹהִים). e.g. Exodus 22:27
- 2. of Solom. 1 K 11:34. Elsewhere only Ez P Chr:— e.g. 1 Kings 11:34
- 3. of Abr. Gn 23:6, of Ishmaelites 17:20; 25:16, of Hittites Gn 34:2. e.g. Genesis 23:6
- 4. rulers of the congregation, נְשִׂיאֵי הָעֵדָה Ex 16:22 Jos 9:15, 18; 22:30, הַנּ׳ בָּעֵדָה 34:31, cf. 35:27 Lv 4:22 Jos 9:18b, 19, 21(×2); 17:4; 22:14(×3), 32 (all P); especially e.g. Ezekiel 16:22
- 5. tribal chiefs and representatives, according to the religious organization of P, Nu 1:16, 44 2:3 + 57 times Nu (especially chaps. 2, 7, 34; note נְשִׂיא נְשִׂיאֵי הַלִּוֵי 3:32); cf. 1 Ch 2:10; 4:38; 5:6; 7:40 2 Ch 1:2; also 1 K 8:1 (prob. gloss, om. 𝔊 Benz), 2 Ch 5:2. e.g. Numbers 1:16
- 6. in Ezek.:
- a. of Zedekiah (for מֶלָךְ; v. BöhmerSK 1900, 112 ff.), 7:27; 12:10, 12; 21:30, + 19:1 (read sg. 𝔊 Ew Hi Co Berthol Toy). e.g. Ezekiel 7:27
- b. chief men of Judah 21:17; 22:6; 45:8, 9. e.g. Ezekiel 21:17
- c. future Davidic kg. 34:24; 37:25, cf. 44:3(×2) + 16 times Ez 45, 46, 48. e.g. Ezekiel 34:24
- d. foreign princes 26:16; 27:21; 30:13; 32:29; 38:2, 3; 39:1, 18. e.g. Ezekiel 26:16
- 7. leader of exiles returning under Cyrus, according to Ezr 1:8. e.g. Ezra 1:8
- 8. non-Isr. chiefs in P: Gn 34:2 Nu 25:18 Jos 13:21. e.g. Genesis 34:2
נשיא II [m.] rising mist, vapour (Arabic نَشْءٌ, نَشِىٌٔ )
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.m. one lifted up, i.e. a chief prince;—abs. נ׳ Ez 22:27 +; cstr. נְשִׂיא Gn 23:6 +; pl. נְשִׂיאִים Jos 22:32 +, נְשִׂאִים Ex 34:31 + 7 times, נְשִׂיאִם Gn 17:20 + 3 times, נְשִׂאִם Ex 35:27; cstr. נְשִׂיאֵי Ex 16:22 +; sf. נְשִׂיאַי Ez 45:8, נְשִׂיאֶיהָ Ez 32:29, נְשִׂיאֵיהֶם Nu 17:21, נְשִׂיאֵהֶם v 17, etc.—mostly in Isr.:
II. n.[m.] rising mist, vapour (Arabic نَشْءٌ, نَشِىٌٔ );—only pl. נְשִׂאִים vapours, forming clouds, and portending rain, Je 10:13 = 51:16, ψ 135:7, נְשִׂיאִים Pr 25:14.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from נשא (nâsâʼ) (H5375) — to lift.
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.
נַשְׁיָא
- m. ch. = h. נָשֶׁה. Targ. Gen. XXXII, 33 גידא דנ׳.—Ḥull. 97ᵇ גידא נ׳, v. גִּידָא
נָשִׂיא
- 1. prince, chief, ruler, officer. Num. R. s. 1 לנ׳ שנכנס וכ׳ like unto a chief that entered a country. Ib. שלא מנה נ׳ לשבט וכ׳ he appointed no prince for the tribe of Levi. [Ib. נשיא שבטים, read נְשִׂיאֵי]. Hor. II, 6; a. v. fr.—Pl. נְשִׂיאִים. Num. R. s. 12 למה נזדרזו הנ׳ וכ׳ why were the princes so anxious to be the first &c.? Num. R. s. 3; a. v. fr.—Esp. Nasi, the chief of the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem and of its successor in Palestinian places (v. אָב). Taan. II, 1. Pes. 66ᵃ מינוהו נ׳ עליהם they elected him as their Nasi; a. fr.—R. Judah the Nasi, v. רַבִּי.—Pl. as ab. Ḥag. II, 2; a. e.
- 2. pl. as ab. clouds. Kidd. 32ᵇ להק"בה … מעלה נ׳ וכ׳ the Lord causes the wind to blow and brings up clouds and lets rain come down &c.
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 67 distinct written forms H5387 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 7 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5387, 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
- משא massâʼ H4853 burden
- משא massôʼ H4856 partiality
- משאה massâʼâh H4858 uplifting
- משאת masʼêth H4864 burden
- מתנשא mithnassêʼ H4984 to exalt oneself
- נשא nᵉsâʼ H5376 to lift
- נשאת nissêʼth H5379 portion
- נשואה nᵉsûwʼâh H5385 load
- שאת sᵉʼêth H7613 exaltation
- שוא sôwʼ H7721 rising
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 13 — 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.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 120 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 120 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
- Genesis 17:20
- Exodus 16:22
- Leviticus 4:22
- Numbers 1:16
- Joshua 9:15
- 1 Kings 8:1
- 1 Chronicles 2:10
- 2 Chronicles 1:2
- Ezra 1:8
- Psalms 135:7
- Proverbs 25:14
- Jeremiah 10:13
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.
