סֶ֫רַח
excess
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
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 H5629 appears — 1 distinct verse across 1 book. 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 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.
סרח (çerach) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “excess.” It is rare — just 1 verse in the entire Hebrew Bible. Exodus dominates its distribution — 1 of 1 verses. It occurs only once, in Exodus 26:12. Related forms include סרח and שרח. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5629 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 →
- 1
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 1 distinct verse.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #6,101
- by frequency
- Rank #6,101 (rank 6,101 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 1 occurrence in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Exodus 1 verse 100%
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 1 distinct verse.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 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).
- King James Version: Remnant 1×
- American Standard Version: Overhanging 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Overlap 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Excess 1×, The 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5629 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5629 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5629 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5629 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense 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.
- excess, overhanging
Word origin
סֶ֫רַח n.m. excess;— Ex 26:12 (P)
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from סרח (çârach) (H5628) — to go free.
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.
סָרַח I
- (Saf. of ארח; cmp. סרג, סרך) to entangle, intercept. Y. Succ. V, 55ᶜ bot. מפני שהוא סוֹרֵחַ את הנעימה because it (the sound of the organ) intercepts (confounds) the melody of the song; (Arakh. 10ᵇ מערבב)—Esp. (of a rough-edged surface) to catch (cmp. סִכְסֵךְ); to lacerate. Kel. XXX, 4 סוֹרַחַת את היד it (the flask whose mouth is broken off) catches the hand (when you attempt to get the aromatic unguent out). Tosef. Kel. B. Bath. VII, 10 סוֹרְחִין את הפה the rough edges lacerate the lips (R. S. to Kel. XXX, 3 סורקים, read סוֹרְחִים).
- same, to lacerate. Keth. 61ᵇ שפשתן מַסְרִיחַ את הפה the flax (which the spinner moistens with saliva) makes the mouth sore; Y. ib. V, 30ᵃ bot. מַסְרַחַת, v. שִׁלְבֵּק.
- to clutch, grasp. Erub. 54ᵃ (ref. to Ps. LXVIII, 11) אם אדם משים … שמְסָרֶחֶת ואוכלת וכ׳ if one makes himself like a beast of prey which seizes (with its claws) and eats (differ. in comment.), his learning will stay with him, i.e. only he who is plain in his living will become a scholar; Yalk. Ps. 795. e.g. Psalms 68:11
סְרַח
- ; Af. אַסְרַח to clutch. Targ. Prov. XXVIII, 15 מַסְרִיחַ Ms. (ed. מַצְרִיחַ; h. text שקק).
סָרַח II
- Saf. of רוח, cmp. רָוַח; cmp. Arab. saraḥa) to be or to make wide; to extend.—Part. pass. סָרוּחַ; f. סְרוּחָה; pl. סְרוּחִים, סְרוּחִין; סְרוּחות a) overhanging, flapping. Yoma 83ᵇ ואזניו ס׳ and his (the mad dog’s) ears flap.—b) (v. Am. VI, 4; 7) stretched indolently on the couch, banqueting. M. Kat. 28ᵇ; Keth. 69ᵇ; Yalk. Am. 545 נעשה שר לס׳, v. מַר II. Num. R. s. 9, v. סוּר I.—c) emasculated, impotent. Gen. R. s. 32 (ref. to Gen. VII, 16) פרט לס׳ ומחוסרי וכ׳ (ed. Leipz. סרוסים, corr. acc.) to the exclusion of emasculated animals (impotent from old age; ‘Rashi’: animals having overhanging, double, limbs) and mutilated ones. Deut. R. s. 3 (expl. עקר וכ׳, ib. VII, 14) ס׳ ואילוניות (some ed. סריסין) impotent men or barren women. e.g. Amos 6:4
סְרַח ²
- , to hang over. Targ. O. Ex. XXVI, 12. Part. סְרִיחַ. Ib. 13.
- to cause to hang over. Part. pass. מְסָרַח. B. Kam. 117ᵃ ומְסָרְחֵי וכ׳, v. גְּבִינָא I.
סָרַח III
- (v. precd.; cmp. רִיחַ) to evaporate, be decomposed; to decay; to smell badly.—Part. pass. סָרוּחַ; f. סְרוּחָה; pl. סְרוּחִים, סְרוּחִין; סְרוּחוֹת. Ter. III, 1; a. fr.—Trnsf. a) (cmp. חָמַץ) to sin, offend. Snh. 71ᵇ; Keth. 45ᵃ סָרְחָה ולבסוף בגרה if she sinned (had intercourse) and afterwards became of age. Num. R. s. 13 אם אינה סוֹרַחַת … ואם סורחת מלקה (not סוחרת) is she (the ass whom he rides) is not mischievous, he does not strike her, but if she is, he strikes her; Yalk. Lev. 554; Yalk. Prov. 959. Ib. שאם יִסְרַח יהא וכ׳ to chastise him with them in case he should offend. Yoma 75ᵃ הוא ס׳ עלי he (my husband) acted offensively towards me; היא סרחה וכ׳ she acted offensively &c. Ib. 77ᵃ סרחה אומתך thy people has degenerated. Midr. Till. to Ps. VI סרחה עליו מדינתו one of his provinces rebelled against him. Ex. R. s. 43 סָרַחְתָּ כל הסרחון הזה וכ׳ thou hast done all that mischief, and thou criest? Ex. R. s. 42 לא היה לכם לִסְרוֹחַ וכ׳ you ought not to have sinned either on the second or the third day, but must you sin on the very first day?; a. fr.—b) to become senseless (cmp. טַעַם); to be stupid. Sot. IX, 15 (49ᵇ) והכמות סופרים תִּסְרַח (or תִּסָּרֵחַ Nif.) and the wisdom of the scholars shall become vapid (v. Jer. XLIX, 7); Snh. 97ᵃ; Cant. R. to II, 13; Yalk. Am. 549.—Part. pass. as ab. Cant. R. to IV, 8 דיעה ס׳ וכ׳ that senseless fool &c., v. דֵּעָה. Num. R. s. 20; Tanḥ. Bal. 9 (ref. to the peculiar expression inNum. XXII, 29) אע"פ … לשונו ס׳ even when speaking the sacred tongue, the gentile’s speech is tasteless (or obscene). e.g. Jeremiah 49:7
- to become vapid, be stupid. Ḥag. 5ᵇ (ref. to Jer. l. c.) כיון שאבדה … נִסְרַחַת וכ׳ when counsel was gone from the children (of Israel), the wisdom of the nations became vapid.
- 1. to make offensive. Sabb. 62ᵇ (ref. to סרחים, Am. VI, 4) מַסְרִיחִין וכ׳ make their beds offensive with effusion &c.; Kidd. 71ᵇ. Tanḥ. Vaëra 14 הִסְרִיחוּ מצרים they made Egypt stink; a. e. e.g. Amos 6:4
- 2. to become vapid, putrid; to smell badly. Cant. R. to II, 13 היין יַסְרִיחַ the wine will become vapid (Sot. l. c., a. e. היין ביוקר). Gen. R. s. 34 הוא מַסְרִיחַ it becomes putrid; ואינה מַסְרַחַת without decaying. Tanḥ. l. c. ויַסְרִיחוּ במצרים and spread stench in Egypt. Yalk. Ex. 391 חלבנה … מסרחת galbanum gives only an offensive smell; a. fr.
סְרַח ³
- , to decay. Part. pass. סְרִיחָא. Targ. Job XLI, 19 Ms. (ed. בּוּלְטִיתָא).—Esp. to sin. Targ. Y. Num. XV, 28. Targ. II Sam. VII, 14; a. fr.
- to make offensive. Targ. Y. Ex. V, 21 דאַסְרַחְתּוּן (not דאִס׳).
סֶרַח
- Serah, daughter of Asher, a legendary prophetess, a survivor of the Egyptian immigrants to the period of the exodus. Sot. 13ᵃ. Gen. R. s. 94 (some ed. שֶׂ׳). Deut. R. s. 11 פגעה בו סגולה (read: ס׳ בת אשר). Koh. R. to IX, 18; 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5629, 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
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 1 verse that also exists in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 1 Hebrew verse 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.
