סוּף
reed
also: rush, water plant 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
- 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.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H5488 appears in the Book of Exodus — 7 distinct verses. 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.
Exodus
- Exodus 2:3 בַּ/סּ֖וּף prep det + n c ms When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank.
- Exodus 2:5 הַ/סּ֔וּף ptcl def.art + n c ms Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe at the river. Her maidens walked along by the riverside. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her handmaid to get it.
- Exodus 10:19 סּ֑וּף n c ms Yahweh turned an exceeding strong west wind, which took up the locusts, and drove them into the Red Sea. There remained not one locust in all the borders of Egypt.
- Exodus 13:18 ס֑וּף n c ms but God led the people around by the way of the wilderness by the Red Sea; and the children of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 15:4 סֽוּף n c ms Pharaoh's chariots and his host has he cast into the sea; His chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea.
- Exodus 15:22 ס֔וּף n c ms Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.
- Exodus 23:31 סוּף֙ n c ms I will set your border from the Red Sea even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.
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.
סוף (çûwph) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “reed.” Its English rendering has broadened — “red” classically, “reeds” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 28 verses in 11 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Exodus dominates its distribution — 7 of 28 verses. It also covers “rush” and “water plant”, alongside “reed” — see its full sense range. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5488 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 →
- 28
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 28 distinct verses.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,190
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,190 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 28 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 28 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 14 verses · 50%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 8 verses · 29%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 21%
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 3 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†: Red 24×, Flags 3×
- American Standard Version†: Red 24×, Flags 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Red 22×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Reeds 24×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5488 across 28† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5488 across 28† 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5488 across 27† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5488 across 27† 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 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 6 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.
סוף I come to an end, cease (𝔗 סוּף, Syriac (ܣܘܦ) ܣܳܦ, cease, stop (often), 𝔗 סוֹפָא, Syriac ܣܽܘܦܳܐ, NH סוֹף end)
Qal
- Pf. 3 pl. סָ֫פוּ ψ 73:19, וְסָפ֫וּ consec. Am 3:15; Impf. 3 ms. יָסוּף Est 9:28; 3 mpl. יָסֻ֫פוּ Is 66:17;—come to an end Am 3:15 Is 66:17 ψ 73:19 (+ תַּמּוּ), וְזִכְרָם לֹא־יָסוּף מִזַּרְעָם Est 9:28. e.g. Psalms 73:19
Hiphil
- make an end of, only (if text correct) Impf. 1 s. (+ Inf. abs. אָסֹף, chosen for assonance, v. אסף), cohort. = juss. in form, אָסֹף אָסֵף Zp 1:2, אָסֵף v 3, 3, אָסֹף אֲסִיפֵם Je 8:13 (on these forms v. Gf Bö§ 988, 1 Köi. 445, 446); but read perhaps, for אָסֵף, אֶאֱסֹף, We Buhl Lex 13, or אֹסֵף, Ges§§ 72 aa, 113 w n. 3 Now Zp 1:2, and in Je אָסֹף אֹסְפֵם Gesl.c. (against Gie v. Hi). e.g. Zephaniah 1:2
סוף II Jon 2
- 1. rushes, in Nile Ex 2:3, 5 (E); קָנֶהוָסוּף Is 19:6 (of Egypt); Jon 2:6. e.g. Exodus 2:3
- 2. usually in combin. יַם־סוּף prob. = sea of rushes or reeds (> sea of (city) Suph), which Gk. incl. in wider name θάλασσα ἐρυθρά, Red Sea (cf. Di Ex 13:18 and especially WMMAs. u. Eur. 42 f., who expl. as name orig. given to upper end of Gulf of Suez, extending into Bitter Lakes, shallow and marshy, whence reeds (prob. also reddish colour));—name applied only to arms of Red Sea; most often e.g. Exodus 13:18
- a. to Gulf of Suez Ex 10:19 Jos 2:10 (both J), Ex 13:18; 15:4, 22; 23:31 (all E), Dt 11:4 Jos 4:23; 24:6 (D), Nu 33:10, 11 (P), elsewhere late Ne 9:9 ψ 106:7, 9, 22; 136:13, 15. e.g. Exodus 10:19
- b. sometimes to Gulf of Akaba 1 K 9:26, and דֶּרֶךְ יַם־סוּף Nu 21:4 (E), prob. also 14:25 (E), Dt 1:40; 2:1; perhaps Ju 11:16 Je 49:21; poss. read מִיַּם־סוּף for מוֹל ס׳ Dt 1:1 (v. infr.). e.g. 1 Kings 9:26
סוף III loc. (si vera l.) named in defining loc. of Deut. law-giving Dt 1
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. vb. come to an end, cease (𝔗 סוּף, Syriac (ܣܘܦ) ܣܳܦ, cease, stop (often), 𝔗 סוֹפָא, Syriac ܣܽܘܦܳܐ, NH סוֹף end);—
II. n.m. Jon 2:6 reeds, rushes (coll.) (prob. loan-word from Egyptian ṭwfi, reeds, SteindorffBASi. 603 ErmanZMG xivi (1892), 122; Semitic according to WMMAs. u. Eur. 101);—
III. n.pr.loc. (si vera l.) named in defining loc. of Deut. law-giving Dt 1:1 (מוֹל סוּף, where מוֹל by dissimil. for מוּל); but read perhaps מִיַּם סוּף (𝔊 πλησίον τῆς ἐρυθρᾶς, 𝔊L + θαλάσσης, 𝔙 contra mare rubrum), v. i. סוּף. v. CheEB Red Sea.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: probably of Egyptian origin
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.
סוּף I
- v. סוּף II) reed, bulrush.—ים ס׳ the sea of Suf (Red Sea). Sot. 12ᵃ sq. (ref. to בסוף, Ex. II, 3) ר"א אומר ים ס׳ וכ׳ R. E. says, that means the sea; R. S. says, it means ăgam (v. אֲגַם II, 2); Ex. R. s. 1. Ex. R. s. 22 קריעת ים ס׳ the splitting of the Red Sea (for the passage of the Israelites); Y. Ber. I, 3ᵈ bot.; a. fr. e.g. Exodus 2:3
סוּף
- only with יַם, יַמָּא. Targ. Ex. XIII, 18. Targ. Jon. II, 6; a. fr.
סוּף II
- (b. h.) to cut; to be cut off; to end. Tanḥ. B’resh. 12 וסָפָה הטובים וכ׳ and destroys the good and the bad.
- to cut, diminish; to exterminate (corresp. to b. h. כִּלָּה). Gen. R. s. 100 מי יכול לסַיֵּיף וכ׳ who can annihilate the dust?… the beasts of the field? &c. Gen. R. s. 42 מה אתה הולך ומְסַיֵּיף את עצמך וכ׳ Var. in Yalk. ib. 73 for מסרס (ed. מסיים) why wilt thou reduce (weaken) thyself among thy enemies? (v.Tanḥ. Tanḥ. Vayera 3).—Part. pass. מְסוּיָּיף (denom. of סוֹף); f. pl. מְסוּיָּיפוֹת left to the end, ripening late; opp. בַּכִּיר, בִּכּוּרָה. Y. Dem. I, beg. 21ᶜ הבכירות והמס׳ (Tosef. ib. I, 3 הבכורות והסייפות). Y. Shebi. IV, end, 35ᶜ; a. fr.
- to be late in ripening, to be left on the tree beyond cutting time. Y. Dem. I, beg., 21ᶜ נִסְתַּיְּיפוּ וכ׳, v. סוֹף a. סוֹפֶת.
סוּף ²
- 1. to finish; to destroy. Targ. Y. II, Num. XXXIII, 52 תְּסוּפוּן (Y. I תִּסְפּוּן a. תְּסַיְּיפוּן). Targ. Lam. IV, 11; a. e.
- 2. to cease. Targ. Is. XIV, 4. Targ. Lev. XXVI, 20. Targ. Prov. II, 22; a. fr.—Part. סָיֵיף. Ib. XI, 31; a. e.—Koh. R. to X, 15 מביני … סָפַת וכ׳ between the two (disputing) that unfortunate woman (Jephthah’s daughter) perished; Lev. R. s. 37, end בין דין לדין ספת וכ׳ (some ed. נספת, corr. acc.).
- to finish; to consume, ruin. Targ. Y. Gen. XLIV, 12 Ar. (ed. פסק). Targ. Y. Lev. XIX, 9. Ib. XXVI, 16; a. e.—Part. pass. מְסַיַּיף. Targ. I Kings XIV, 10.—Yalk. Gen. 133 סַיְּיפַת, v. סוּב.
- same. Targ. O. Deut. XXXII, 22 (ed. Berl. אַסֵּ׳; ed. Vien. אָסֵ׳; h. text אכלה). Ib. 23 (h. text אספה). Targ. Zeph. I, 3; a. fr.
סוֹף
- preced.)
- 1. end. Yeb. XVI, 4 (121ᵃ) מים … שאין להם ס׳ waters without end (the shores of which you cannot see from all sides). Ned. 62ᵃ וס׳ הכבוד לבא and honor will finally come of itself. Gen. R. s. 71, beg. (ref. to Ps. LXIX, 34) לא ראשו … סוֹפוֹ ולא סופו ראשו the first clause of this verse does not correspond (in syntactical construction) to its final clause &c. Sifra K’dosh. ch. III, Par. 2 אם גנבת סוֹפְךָ לכחש וכ׳ if thou stealest, thou wilt finally deny &c. Kidd. 31ᵃ מס׳ דברך, v. נָכַר. Meg. 7ᵃ בתחלה קבעוה בשושן וְלִבְסוֹף וכ׳ at first they established it (the festival of Purim) in Shushan, and then for the whole (Jewish) world; a. v. fr.—לא ס׳ דבר אלא … this is not the end of it …, but. Gen. R. s. 38 (ref. to Prov. XVII, 13) לא ס׳ ד׳ משיב וכ׳ after all, not only he who requites evil for good, but even he who requites evil for evil &c. Y. Shebi. III, end, 34ᵈ; a. fr. e.g. Psalms 69:34
- 2. remnant, esp. pl. סוֹפִין fruit remaining on the tree after harvest time, late fruit. Y. Yeb. XII, 12ᵈ bot. קידש בגופו של ס׳ (prob. to be read בנוֹפוֹ) if one betrothed a woman, giving as a consideration a branch of a tree of his containing remainders (mostly worthless). Pes. 6ᵇ סוֹפֵי … ומשמר וכ׳ if there are in a man’s field late figs, but he watches his field for the sake of the grapes; v. סוֹפֶת.—[Tosef. Kel. B. Mets. II, 8 סופין ed. Zolk., read: סוֹבִין.]
סוֹף ²
- Targ. Job XXVIII, 3; a. fr.—Y. Snh. X, 29ᵃ bot. יהא סוֹפֵיה וכ׳, v. חֲנַק. Ab. Zar. 41ᵃ מעיקרא … ולבס׳ וכ׳ at first …, but finally &c.; 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 11 distinct written forms H5488 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| סֽוּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Deuteronomy 1:40 | 8 |
| ס֔וּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Deuteronomy 2:1 | 4 |
| ס֑וּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 13:18 | 3 |
| ס֖וּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Kings 9:26 | 3 |
| סוּף֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Deuteronomy 11:4 | 3 |
| ס֭וּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 106:9 | 2 |
| בַּ/סּ֖וּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 2:3 | 1 |
| הַ/סּ֔וּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 2:5 | 1 |
| וָ/ס֖וּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 19:6 | 1 |
| ס֛וּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Joshua 4:23 | 1 |
| סּ֑וּף | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 10:19 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5488, 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.
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 → 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 24 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 28 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
- Exodus 2:3
- Numbers 14:25
- Deuteronomy 1:40
- Joshua 2:10
- Judges 11:16
- Psalms 106:7
- Isaiah 19:6
- Jeremiah 49:21
- Jonah 2:5
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.
