סָעַר
to storm
‘to storm’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘sustain’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
- Pual
- The passive counterpart of the Piel.
Form
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 times (29%)
- Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Pual, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Poel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (14%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (14%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 7 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5590 appears — 7 distinct verses across 6 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.
2 Kings 1 verse
Isaiah 1 verse
Hosea 1 verse
Jonah 2 verses
- Jonah 1:11 וְ/סֹעֵֽר conj + Qal ptcp.act ms Then said they to him, "What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm to us?" For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.
- Jonah 1:13 וְ/סֹעֵ֖ר conj + Qal ptcp.act ms Nevertheless the men rowed hard to get them back to the land; but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.
Habakkuk 1 verse
Zechariah 1 verse
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.
סער (çâʻar) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “to storm.” Different stems carry different senses — BDB groups them under 4 stems, among them Qal and Niphal. It turns up in 7 verses across 6 books, an uncommon footprint. It concentrates in Jonah, which alone accounts for 29% of its uses. It first appears in 2 Kings 6:11. 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 H5590 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 →
- 7
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 7 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,835
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,835 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 7 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 7 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 7 verses · 100%
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†: Was tempestuous 2×
- American Standard Version†: I will scatter them with a whirlwind 1×, Is driven with the whirlwind 1×, More and more tempestuous 1×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Became enraged 1×, Blown 1×, I scattered them with a whirlwind 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Storming 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5590 across 7† 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5590 across 7† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5590 across 7† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5590 across 9† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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
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. This entry also uses one or more reduplicated stems (the Pōlēl/Pilpēl type), which for hollow or geminate roots behave much like Piel — often intensive or iterative.
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.
סער I support, sustain, stay (NH id., especially take a meal
Qal
- Pf. 3 ms. וְסָעַד consec. Pr 20:28; Impf. 3 ms. יִסְעָ֑ד 3 fs. sf. תִּסְעָדֵ֫נִי ψ 18:36, read also in ‖ 2 S 22:36, etc.; Imv. ms. סְעָד Ju 19:5 (on—ָ prob. ŏ, by error, v. Köi 261 f. GFMad loc.), סְעָד־נָא v 8 (cf. id.), וּסֳעָ֑דָה 1 K 13:7; sf. סְעָדֵנִי ψ 119:117; Inf. cstr. sf. וּלְסַעֲדָהּ Is 9:6;—support, sustain, always fig.: e.g. Proverbs 20:28
- 1. sustain, stay, the heart (cf. לֵבָב 8, לֵב 8), with food Gn 18:5 (J), Ju 19:5 (c. 2 acc.), v 8, ψ 104:15; obj. om. 1 K 13:7. e.g. Genesis 18:5
- 2.
- a. support throne (subj. kg.) Pr 20:28, coming ruler Is 9:6. e.g. Proverbs 20:28
- b. support, uphold c. acc. pers. (subj. י׳, his hand etc.) ψ 18:36 + ‖ 2 S 22:36 (v supr.), ψ 20:3; 41:4; 94:18; 119:117. e.g. Psalms 18:36
סער II storm, rage (Ecclus. סער Hiph. 47
Qal
- Impf. 3 mpl. fig., יִסְעֲרוּ Hb 3:14 they [my foes] storm along to scatter me; Pt. act. סֹעֵר Jon 1:11 the sea was growing more and more stormy, so v 13 (+ עֲלֵיהֶם); f. סֹעֲרָה Is 54:11 storm-tossed (fig. of Jerusalem). e.g. Habakkuk 3:14
Niphal
- Impf. 3 ms. וַיִּסָּעֵר 2 K 6:11 and the heart of the king … was enraged because of (עַל־) this thing. e.g. 2 Kings 6:11
Piel
- Impf. 1 s. sf. וְאֵסָֽעֲרֵם עַל־ Zc 7:14 (on form v. Ges§§ 23 h, 52 n) and storm them away (hurl them by a storm-wind) upon the nations. e.g. Zechariah 7:14
Po
- Impf. 3 ms. כְּמֹץ יְסֹעֵר Ho 13:3 shall be like chaff (which) is storm-driven from a threshing-floor. e.g. Hosea 13:3
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. support, sustain, stay (NH id., especially take a meal; Aramaic סְעַד support, stay; Zinj. סעד strengthen Lzb 330, support, perhaps feed Cook85; ChrPalAramaic n. ܣܥܕܘܢܐ aid, SchwallyIdiot. 64; Arabic سَعِدَ, سُعِدَ iii, iv. aid, assist, Lane 1360, سَاعِدٌ forearm Id 1362; Sab. סעד DHM Südar. Alt. p. 16);—
I. vb. storm, rage (Ecclus. סער Hiph. 47:17 move tempestuously; סְעָרָה storm-wind 43:17; 48:9; NH Pi. stir up, blow, סְעָרָה storm-wind; = II. שָׂעַר, but relation obscure; Assyrian šâru, wind, favours originality of שׂ׳, but this only late in Heb., and for ס׳ Frä 189 cp. Arabic سَعَرَ kindle fire, excite, inflame, be vehemently hungry and thirsty, be mad, insane, etc. Lane 1363);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
*סָעַר I
- (cmp. סוּר) to go around; to visit. Sabb. 12ᵇ מנין שהקב"ה סוֹעֵר את החולה Ms. M. (Ar. סר; ed. שהשכינה סועד) whence is it proven that the Lord visits the sick?—Answ. ref. to יסעדנו (Ps. XLI, 4), [to which is added in Ar.: קרי ביה יִסְעָרֶנּוּ read it yisʿarennu ‘shall visit him]. e.g. Psalms 41:4
סְעַר
- , (corresp. to h. פקד) to visit, examine. Targ. I Kings IX, 12 (ed. Lag. למחזי). Targ. I Sam. XIV, 17.—Esp. ס׳ (ל)שלם to inquire after a person’s health. Ib. XVII, 18 (ed. Wil. תַּסְ׳ Af.). Targ. II Kings X, 13 (ed. Wil. למסעד, corr. acc.; v. Koh. Ar. Compl. s. v. סער).
- 1. same, v. supra.
- 2. (with על of person) to visit upon. Targ. Job XXXIV, 29. Ib. XXXVI, 23 אַסְעַר Ms. (ed. יִסְעַר, read יַסְ׳). Targ. O. Lev. XXVI, 16; a. fr.
- to be visited; to be inflicted upon. Targ. O. Num. XVI, 29 (some ed. יִסְתְּ׳, Ithpe.).
סָעַר II
- to be rough; to be in commotion.
- to stir up, to blow. Kil. V, 7 וסִיעַרְתֹּו הרוח לאחריו and the wind drove the seed backward; Tosef. ib. III, 12 סייתו, סייעתו, הסעורתו ed. Zuck. (corr. acc., v. infra). B. Bath. 25ᵃ (ref. to שעירם, Deut. XXXII, 2) זו … שמְסָעֶרֶת וכ׳ that is the east wind which stirs up the whole world like a saʿir (demon); [Sifré Deut. 306 שמשחיד וכ׳; Yalk. ib. 942 שמשחרת which makes the sky black like goats. e.g. Deuteronomy 32:2
- same. Tosef. l. c. והסעורתו, read: יהִסְעִירָתוֹ, v. supra. Num. R. s. 9 (play on שְׂעֹרִים, Num. V, 15) והִסְעִירָם הב"ה וכ׳ (not והסעידה) and the Lord scattered them among the nations (with ref. to Zech. VII, 14). e.g. Numbers 5:15
סְעַר ²
- ; Ithpa. אִסְתַּעַר to be excited, troubled. Targ. II Kings VI, 11.
סֵעָר
- hair, v. שֵׂעָר.
סְעָר
- (preced. art.; cmp. זוּף II a. זַיִף) hair. Targ. O. Gen. XXV, 25 ed. Berl.; a. fr. [Mostly with שׂ, v. שַׂעֲרָא.]—Y. Naz. IX, end, 58ᵃ סַעֲרָה, v. שַׂעֲרָא.—Pl. סַעֲרָן f. Targ. Ps. LXIX, 5 (Ms. סַעֲרִין).
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 7 distinct written forms H5590 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וְ/אֵ֣סָעֲרֵ֗/ם | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Zechariah 7:14 | 1 |
| וְ/סֹעֵ֖ר | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jonah 1:13 | 1 |
| וְ/סֹעֵֽר | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jonah 1:11 | 1 |
| וַ/יִּסָּעֵר֙ | Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | 2 Kings 6:11 | 1 |
| יְסֹעֵ֣ר | Verb, Poel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Hosea 13:3 | 1 |
| יִסְעֲר֖וּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Habakkuk 3:14 | 1 |
| סֹעֲרָ֖ה | Verb, Pual, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Isaiah 54:11 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5590, 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 7 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.
