סֶ֫רֶן
lord
also: ruler, tyrant fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Construct-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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 19 times (86%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 3 times (14%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 22 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5633 appears — 20 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.
Joshua 1 verse
Judges 7 verses
- Judges 3:3 סַרְנֵ֣י n c mp cs [namely], the five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath.
- Judges 16:5 סַרְנֵ֣י n c mp cs The lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will each give you of us eleven hundred [pieces] of silver.
- Judges 16:8 סַרְנֵ֣י n c mp cs Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green cords which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.
- Judges 16:18 לְ/סַרְנֵ֨י סַרְנֵ֣י prep + n c mp cs n c mp cs When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he has told me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hand.
- Judges 16:23 וְ/סַרְנֵ֣י conj + n c mp cs The lords of the Philistines gathered them together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said, Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.
- Judges 16:27 סַרְנֵ֣י n c mp cs Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were on the roof about three thousand men and women, who saw while Samson made sport.
- Judges 16:30 הַ/סְּרָנִ֔ים ptcl def.art + n c mp Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. He bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were therein. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than those who he killed in his life.
1 Samuel 10 verses
- 1 Samuel 5:8 סַרְנֵ֨י n c mp cs They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines to them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? They answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about to Gath. They carried the ark of the God of Israel [there].
- 1 Samuel 5:11 סַרְנֵ֣י n c mp cs They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and they said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to its own place, that it not kill us and our people. For there was a deadly confusion throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.
- 1 Samuel 6:4 סַרְנֵ֣י וּ/לְ/סַרְנֵי/כֶֽם n c mp cs conj + prep + n c mp cs + sfx pers 2mp Then they said, "What shall be the trespass-offering which we shall return to him?" They said, "Five golden tumors, and five golden mice, [according to] the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.
- 1 Samuel 6:12 וְ/סַרְנֵ֤י conj + n c mp cs The cattle took the straight way by the way to Beth-shemesh; they went along the highway, lowing as they went, and didn't turn aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth-shemesh.
- 1 Samuel 6:16 סַרְנֵֽי n c mp cs When the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day.
- 1 Samuel 6:18 הַ/סְּרָנִ֔ים ptcl def.art + n c mp and the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fortified cities and of country villages, even to the great stone, whereon they set down the ark of Yahweh, [which stone remains] to this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite.
- 1 Samuel 7:7 סַרְנֵֽי n c mp cs When the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. When the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines.
- 1 Samuel 29:2 וְ/סַרְנֵ֤י conj + n c mp cs The lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds, and by thousands; and David and his men passed on in the rearward with Achish.
- 1 Samuel 29:6 הַ/סְּרָנִ֖ים ptcl def.art + n c mp Then Achish called David, and said to him, As Yahweh lives, you have been upright, and your going out and your coming in with me in the host is good in my sight; for I have not found evil in you since the day of your coming to me to this day: nevertheless the lords don't favor you.
- 1 Samuel 29:7 סַרְנֵ֥י n c mp cs Therefore now return, and go in peace, that you not displease the lords of the Philistines.
1 Kings 1 verse
1 Chronicles 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.
The Hebrew noun סרן centers on the idea of “lord.” The word gravitates to 1 Samuel (50%), then Judges and Joshua. It appears 20 verses across 5 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. Lexicons map it across 2 senses — beyond “lord” it also covers “ruler” and “tyrant”. Older and newer Bibles part ways — “lords” in the King James Version, “rulers” (Berean Standard Bible) and “lords of” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. Dig into 20-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5633 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 →
- 20
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 20 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,412
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,412 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 20 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 20 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 19 verses · 95%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 5%
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†: Lords 16×, All the lords 3×
- American Standard Version†: Lords 14×, All the lords 3×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Rulers 11×, Lords 6×, Leaders 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Lords of 14×, Lords 4×, The 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5633 across 22† 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 H5633 across 22† 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5633 across 22† 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 H5633 across 25† 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.
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 0 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.
סרן I tyrant, lord
סרן II axle
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
[ סֶ֫רֶן ] 21 n.m. tyrant, lord
— 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 of uncertain meaning
Forms in the corpus
The 11 distinct written forms H5633 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| סַרְנֵ֣י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | 1 Samuel 5:11 | 8 |
| הַ/סְּרָנִ֔ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Samuel 6:18 | 2 |
| וְ/סַרְנֵ֣י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | 1 Kings 7:30 | 2 |
| וְ/סַרְנֵ֤י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | 1 Samuel 6:12 | 2 |
| סַרְנֵֽי | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | 1 Samuel 6:16 | 2 |
| הַ/סְּרָנִ֖ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Samuel 29:6 | 1 |
| וּ/לְ/סַרְנֵי/כֶֽם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | 1 Samuel 6:4 | 1 |
| לְ/סַרְנֵ֨י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Judges 16:18 | 1 |
| סַרְנֵ֤י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | 1 Chronicles 12:19 | 1 |
| סַרְנֵ֥י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | 1 Samuel 29:7 | 1 |
| סַרְנֵ֨י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | 1 Samuel 5:8 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 20 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 20 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.
