סָבִיב
round about
also: places round about, circuit 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
- Both
- Attested as both masculine and feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
18 verses where H5439 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of Jeremiah. 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.
Jeremiah
- Jeremiah 1:15 סָבִ֔יב n c bs For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says Yahweh; and they shall come, and they shall set everyone his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls of it round about, and against all the cities of Judah.
- Jeremiah 4:17 מִ/סָּבִ֑יב prep + n c bs As keepers of a field are they against her round about, because she has been rebellious against me, says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 6:3 סָבִ֔יב n c bs Shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall pitch their tents against her round about; they shall feed everyone in his place.
- Jeremiah 6:25 מִ/סָּבִֽיב prep + n c bs Don't go forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy, [and] terror, are on every side.
- Jeremiah 12:9 סָבִ֣יב n c bs Is my heritage to me as a speckled bird of prey? are the birds of prey against her round about? go you, assemble all the animals of the field, bring them to devour.
- Jeremiah 20:10 מִ/סָּבִיב֒ prep + n c bs For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him, [say] all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall; peradventure he will be persuaded, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
- Jeremiah 25:9 סָבִ֑יב n c bs behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says Yahweh, and [I will send] to Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants of it, and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
- Jeremiah 46:5 מִ/סָּבִ֖יב prep + n c bs Why have I seen it? they are dismayed and are turned backward; and their mighty ones are beaten down, and have fled apace, and don't look back: terror is on every side, says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 49:29 מִ/סָּבִֽיב prep + n c bs Their tents and their flocks shall they take; they shall carry away for themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels; and they shall cry to them, Terror on every side!
- Jeremiah 50:14 סָבִיב֙ n c bs Set yourselves in array against Babylon round about, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she has sinned against Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 50:15 סָבִיב֙ n c bs Shout against her round about: she has submitted herself; her bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down; for it is the vengeance of Yahweh: take vengeance on her; as she has done, do to her.
- Jeremiah 50:29 סָבִ֗יב n c bs Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow; encamp against her round about; let none of it escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel.
- Jeremiah 51:2 מִ/סָּבִ֖יב prep + n c bs I will send to Babylon strangers, who shall winnow her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about.
- Jeremiah 52:4 סָבִֽיב n c bs It happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about.
- Jeremiah 52:7 סָבִ֑יב n c bs Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldeans were against the city round about;) and they went toward the Arabah.
- Jeremiah 52:14 סָבִ֑יב n c bs All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem round about.
- Jeremiah 52:22 סָבִ֖יב n c bs A capital of brass was on it; and the height of the one capital was five cubits, with network and pomegranates on the capital round about, all of brass: and the second pillar also had like these, and pomegranates.
- Jeremiah 52:23 סָבִֽיב n c bs There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates were one hundred on the network round about.
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.
סביב — transliterated çâbîyb — is a Hebrew word carrying the sense “round about.” Its English rendering has broadened — “round about” classically, “around” (Berean Standard Bible) and “all around” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 282 verses — common. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in Ezekiel. It also covers “places round about” and “circuit”, alongside “round about” — see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 282-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5439 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 →
- 282
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 282 distinct verses.
- 28 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 28 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #146
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 146 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 282 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 282 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 159 verses · 56%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 67 verses · 24%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 56 verses · 20%
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†: Round about 181×, Are round about 19×, Every side 18×
- American Standard Version†: Round about 165×, Every side 14×, Are round about 13×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Around 61×, All around 30×, Every side 27×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: All around 113×, Around 55×, Surrounding 15×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5439 across 308† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 33 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 H5439 across 307† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 56 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 H5439 across 295† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 50 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 38 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5439 across 329† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 43 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
8 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 8 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.
סביב I subst., used mostly as adv. and prep., circuit, round about
- 1. in sg.:—
- a. as subst. 1 Ch 11:8 מן־המלוא וְעַד־הַסָּבִיב and to the parts round about. e.g. 1 Chronicles 11:8
- b. as adv.acc. סָבִיב (in) a circuit, i.e. round about, Gn 23:17 בְּכָל־גְּבֻלוֹ סָבִיב Ex 19:12; 25:11, 24, 25, Lv 1:5, 11 עַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ סָבִיב, Ju 20:29 1 K 3:1; 5:11 ψ 3:7 אֲשֶׁר ס׳ שָׁתוּ עָלָ֑י, 12:9 34:8 + often; sometimes doubled, for the sake of emphasis, 2 Ch 4:3, Ez 8:10 עַל הַקִּיר ס׳ ס׳, 37:2; 40:5 and often in Ez 40–43. e.g. Genesis 23:17
- c. as prep.: (a) †Am 3:11 צַר וּסְבִיב הָאָרֶץ distress, and that in the circuit of (= round about) the land (but read prob. with 𝔖 יְסֹבֵב will encircle). (b) סָבִיב לְ׳ Ex 16:13; 40:33 Nu 1:50, 53; 2:2 Ju 7:21 1 K 6:5; 18:32, 35 Ez 41:10, 16 Jb 19:12 ψ 34:8; 78:28; 125:2(×2) י׳ סָבִיב לְעַמּוֹ, 128:3 Ct 3:7 Na 3:8. (c) strangely, סָבִיב אֵת †1 K 6:5 (om.𝔊), Ez 43:17. e.g. Amos 3:11
- d. מִסָּבִיב42, from round about, from every side, Ez 16:33, 37; 23:22; 37:21, but usually (מִן 1 c) = on every side, Je 4:17 הָיוּ עָלֶיהָ מִסָּבִיב, Is 42:25 וַתְּלַהֲטֵהוּ מ׳, Jo 4:11, 12; †מָגוֹר מִסָּבִיב terror on every side! Je 6:25; 20:3, 10; 46:5; 49:29 ψ 31:14, cf. La 2:22; especially in the Deut. phrases אוֹיְבִים מ׳, or הֵנִיחַ מ׳ (sometimes in combin.), as Dt 12:10 והניח לכם מכל־אויביכם מ׳, 25:19 Jos 21:42 וַיָּנַח י׳ לָהֶם מ׳, 23:1 Ju 2:14; 8:34 1 S 12:11 +; מִסָּבִיב לְ from round about, †Nu 16:24, 27.—On 1 S 14:21 2 S 24:6 Jb 10:8 v. סָבַב. e.g. Ezekiel 16:33
- 2. In plur.:—
- a. †סְבִיבִים: (a) in masc. sense, those round about, ψ 76:12 כָּל־סְבִיבָיו יֹבִילוּשַׁי, 89:8 Je 48:17, 39. (b) in neuter sense, the parts round about, Je 49:5 מִכָּל־סְבִיבָ֑יִךְ, בִּסְבִיבֵי ירושׁלם 32:44; 33:13; 21:14 וְאָֽכְלָה כָּל־סְבִיבֶיהָ, 46:14; with the force of a prep., ψ 50:3 וסביביו נשׂערה מאד, 97:2 La 1:17. e.g. Psalms 76:12
- b. סְבִיבוֹת: (a) as subst. (α) circuits, Ec 1:6 ועל סביבותיו שָׁב הָרוּחַ; (β) the parts round about, Nu 22:4 ילחכו הקהל את־כל־סְבִיבֹתֵינוּ, Je 17:26; 50:32 (cf. 21:14 supr.); with ref. to their inhabitants, ψ 44:19 = 79:4 לעג וקלם לסב׳, Ez 16:57; 28:24 Dn 9:16. (b) with the force of a prep. Ex 7:24 סְבִיבֹת הַיְאֹר lit. (in) the circuits of the Nile = round about the Nile, Nu 11:24, 31, 32; 35:2 סְבִיבֹתֵיהֶם, Ju 7:18 1 S 26:5, 7 2 K 6:17 סביבֹת אלישׁע, ψ 18:12; 27:6 על אֹיְבַי סביבותי, etc.; often idiom. preceded by אשׁר, as Gn 35:5 הערים אשׁר סביבותיהם 41:48 Lv 25:44 Nu 16:34 Dt 6:14; 13:8; 17:14; 21:2 +. In the same sense מִסְּבִיבוֹתָם + Ez 28:26. e.g. Ecclesiastes 1:6
סביב II encompassing, surrounding(?)
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. subst., used mostly as adv. and prep., circuit, round about:—cstr. סְבִיב †Am 3:11; pl. cstr. סְבִיבֵי †Je 32:44; 33:13, sf. סְבִיבֶיךָ etc. (10 times), much oftener סְבִיבוֹת Ex 7:24 + 22 times, סְבִיבוֹתַי, תֶיךָ-, etc., Dt 17:14, etc. (48 times):—
I. n.m. encompassing, surrounding(?);—only cstr. מוּסַב הַבַּיִת Ez 41:7 the encompassing of the house, but meaning wholly obscure; מוּסַף enlargement Ew Berthol ToyHpt after 𝔊; Co del. clause as dittogr.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from סבב (çâbab) (H5437) — to turn around.
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.
סָבִיב
- around. Tanḥ. B’midb. 12 ס׳ למשכן around the Tabernacle; 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 84 distinct written forms H5439 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; 24 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5439, 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
- מוסב mûwçâb H4141 surrounding
- מסב mêçab H4524 surroundings
- נסבה nᵉçibbâh H5252 turn of affairs
- סבה çibbâh H5438 turn of events
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 6 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 257 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 282 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 23:17
- Exodus 7:24
- Leviticus 1:5
- Numbers 1:50
- Deuteronomy 6:14
- Joshua 15:12
- Judges 2:12
- 1 Samuel 12:11
- 2 Samuel 5:9
- 1 Kings 5:4
- 2 Kings 6:17
- 1 Chronicles 4:33
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.
