סָגָן
governor
also: ruler, prefect, a subordinate ruler 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
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 15 times (88%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 2 times (12%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 17 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5461 appears — 16 distinct verses across 5 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.
Ezra 1 verse
Nehemiah 8 verses
- Nehemiah 2:16 וְ/הַ/סְּגָנִ֗ים וְ/לַ/סְּגָנִ֗ים conj + ptcl def.art + n c mp conj + prep det + n c mp The rulers didn't know where I went, or what I did; neither had I as yet told it to the Jews, nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest who did the work.
- Nehemiah 4:14 הַ/סְּגָנִים֙ ptcl def.art + n c mp I looked, and rose up, and said to the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Don't be you afraid of them: remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.
- Nehemiah 4:19 הַ/סְּגָנִים֙ ptcl def.art + n c mp I said to the nobles, and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are separated on the wall, one far from another:
- Nehemiah 5:7 הַ/סְּגָנִ֔ים ptcl def.art + n c mp Then I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and the rulers, and said to them, You exact usury, everyone of his brother. I held a great assembly against them.
- Nehemiah 5:17 וְ/הַ/סְּגָנִ֜ים conj + ptcl def.art + n c mp Moreover there were at my table, of the Jews and the rulers, one hundred fifty men, besides those who came to us from among the nations that were round about us.
- Nehemiah 7:5 הַ/סְּגָנִ֛ים ptcl def.art + n c mp My God put into my heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first, and I found written therein:
- Nehemiah 12:40 הַ/סְּגָנִ֖ים ptcl def.art + n c mp So stood the two companies of those who gave thanks in the house of God, and I, and the half of the rulers with me;
- Nehemiah 13:11 הַ/סְּגָנִ֔ים ptcl def.art + n c mp Then contended I with the rulers, and said, Why is the house of God forsaken? I gathered them together, and set them in their place.
Isaiah 1 verse
Jeremiah 3 verses
- Jeremiah 51:23 וּ/סְגָנִֽים conj + n c mp and with you will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; and with you will I break in pieces the farmer and his yoke [of oxen]; and with you will I break in pieces governors and deputies.
- Jeremiah 51:28 סְגָנֶ֑י/הָ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3fs Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, the governors of it, and all the deputies of it, and all the land of their dominion.
- Jeremiah 51:57 וּ/סְגָנֶ֨י/הָ֙ conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3fs I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up, says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Hosts.
Ezekiel 3 verses
- Ezekiel 23:6 וּ/סְגָנִ֔ים conj + n c mp who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.
- Ezekiel 23:12 וּ/סְגָנִ֤ים conj + n c mp She doted on the Assyrians, governors and rulers, [her] neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.
- Ezekiel 23:23 וּ/סְגָנִים֙ conj + n c mp the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, [and] all the Assyrians with them; desirable young men, governors and rulers all of them, princes and men of renown, all of them riding on horses.
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.
סגן — transliterated çâgân — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “governor.” Its uses cluster heavily in Nehemiah (50% of all occurrences). Spanning 16 verses in 5 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. The lexical range runs to 3 senses — “governor” plus “ruler”, “prefect”, and “a subordinate ruler”. The King James Version usually renders it “rulers,” while modern versions prefer “officials” (Berean Standard Bible) and “prefects” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) — see the renderings breakdown. See the sense tree, 16-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5461 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.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,671
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,671 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 16 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 16 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 9 verses · 56%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 7 verses · 44%
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: Rulers 14×
- American Standard Version: Rulers 12×
- Berean Standard Bible: Officials 12×, Commanders 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Prefects 7×, Officials 2×, Rulers 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5461 across 17 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H5461 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H5461 across 17 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5461 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 3 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- ruler, prefect, governor, a subordinate ruler
- prefects (of Assyria and Babylon)
- petty rulers or officials
Word origin
[ סָגָן, סֶ֫גֶן ] n.m. prefect, ruler
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: from an unused root meaning to superintend
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.
סָגָן
- v. סְגֵי I; cmp. רַב) grandee, chief, viceroy. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXIX, 134 כלי … אין לס׳ רשות וכ׳ the viceroy is not permitted to use a vessel which the king has used.—[Num. R. s. 15; Tanḥ. Bhaăl. 11 למחר ס׳, v. פָּגָן.]—Esp. סְגַן הכהנים or הסָּ׳ the chief of the priests, adjutant high priest. Ab. III, 2. Yoma III, 9. Y. ib. III, 41ᵃ top לא היה … עד שנעשה ס׳ none could be appointed high priest, unless he was made a Sagan first. Sifra Tsav, Milluim, Par. 1 נעשה משה ס׳ הכ׳ לאהרן Moses was Aaron’s aid; וכשם שנעשה לו ס׳ בחייו וכ׳ and as he was his aid in his life-time, so was he his aid in his dying hour; a. fr.—Pl. סְגָנִים, סְגָנִין, constr. סִגְנֵי, סִי׳. Es. R. s. 1 מי שם הס׳ אלמים וכ׳ who made the chiefs (Pharaoh’s counsellors) mute &c.?; Tanḥ. Sh’moth 10. Cant. R. to VI, 12 כשנעשו … ונעשו ס׳ על וכ׳ when they were made free men and were redeemed and made the primates of all entering this world; Yalk. ib. 992 נעשו חורין וס׳ וכ׳ they were made nobles and primates &c. Num. R. s. 18 אחיו כ׳'ג ובניו סגני כהונה his brother is high priest and his sons the high priest’s aids; a. fr.—[סגניו, Midr. Till. to Ps. XX, end, v. סִיגְנוֹן.—סִגְנִים, Y’lamd. to Num. X, 2, quot. in Ar., v. סִיגְנוֹן.]
סְגַן
- Targ. Jer. LII, 24 ס׳ כהניא (h. text כהן המשנה), v. preced.—Targ. II Kings XXIII, 4 (h. text pl.); a. fr.—Pl. סִגְנִין, סִגְנַיָּא, סִגְנַיָּה, סִגְנֵי, סִי׳. Targ. I Chr. XVIII, 16.—Snh. 110ᵃ ס׳ דכהנא (Ms. M. סגני כהנים, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note). Ib. 106ᵃ, v. זְנֵי. Esth. R. to I, 3, v. טָעֲמָא.
סִיגְנִין II
- , pl. of סְגַן.
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 14 distinct written forms H5461 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5461, 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 7 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.
