עוֹבֵד
Obed
BDB lists 6 entries for ‘Obed’ 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
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H5744 appears in the Book of Ruth — 3 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.
Ruth
- Ruth 4:17 עוֹבֵ֔ד n Proper The women her neighbors gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they named him Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
- Ruth 4:21 עוֹבֵֽד n Proper and Salmon became the father of Boaz, and Boaz became the father of Obed,
- Ruth 4:22 וְ/עֹבֵד֙ conj + n Proper and Obed became the father of Jesse, and Jesse became the father of David.
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 name עובד centers on the idea of “Obed.” 1 Chronicles dominates its distribution — 5 of 9 verses. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 9 verses — uncommon. Its earliest occurrence is Ruth 4:17. Dig into 9-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5744 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 →
- 9
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 9 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,342
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,342 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 9 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Chronicles 5 verses 56%
- Ruth 3 verses 33%
- 2 Chronicles 1 verse 11%
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 9 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 9 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).
- King James Version: Obed 10×
- American Standard Version: Obed 10×
- Berean Standard Bible: Obed 10×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Obed 10×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5744 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H5744 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H5744 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H5744 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 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.
- 1. son of Boaz and Ruth Ru 4:17, v 21 = 1 Ch 2:12; Ru 4:22 (only here עֹבֵד) = 1 Ch 2:12, 𝔖 Ωβηδ. e.g. Ruth 4:17
- 2. names in Judah, 𝔊 Ωβηδ:
- a. 1 Ch 2:37, 38. e.g. 1 Chronicles 2:37
- b. 2 Ch 23:1.) e.g. 2 Chronicles 23:1
- 3. a mighty man of David 1 Ch 11:47, 𝔊 Ιωβηθ, A Ιωβηδ. e.g. 1 Chronicles 11:47
- 4. a doorkeeper 1 Ch 26:7, 𝔊 Ωβηδ. e.g. 1 Chronicles 26:7
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
n.pr.m. (worshipper; cf. Sab. עבד Os22 and DHMZMG xxxvii (1883), 14;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from עבד (ʻâbad) (H5647) — to serve.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms H5744 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| עוֹבֵ֔ד | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:12 | 2 |
| עוֹבֵֽד | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:37 | 2 |
| וְ/עֹבֵד֙ | Noun, Proper | Ruth 4:22 | 1 |
| וְ/עוֹבֵ֔ד | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 11:47 | 1 |
| וְ/עוֹבֵ֖ד | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:12 | 1 |
| וְ/עוֹבֵ֧ד | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 26:7 | 1 |
| וְ/עוֹבֵד֙ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:38 | 1 |
| עוֹבֵ֜ד | Noun, Proper | 2 Chronicles 23:1 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5744, 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
Shares the same root
- מעבד maʻbâd H4566 work
- עבד ʻăbad H5648 to make
- עבד ʻebed H5650 servant
- עבד ʻăbâd H5652 work
- עבדה ʻăbôdâh H5656 service
- עבדה ʻăbuddâh H5657 service
- עבדות ʻabdûwth H5659 bondage
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- עבדא ʻAbdâʼ H5653 Abda
- עבד אדום ʻÔbêd ʼĔdôwm H5654 Obed-edom
- עבדאל ʻAbdᵉʼêl H5655 Abdeel
- עבדון ʻAbdôwn H5658 Abdon
- עבדי ʻAbdîy H5660 Abdi
- עבדיה ʻÔbadyâh H5662 Obadiah
- Ωβηδ Ōbḗd G5601 Ram
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 16 — not the complete family. 7 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Obed). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Serving; worshipping. (1.) A son of Boaz and Ruth (Ruth 4:21, 22), and the grandfather of David (Matt. 1:5).
(2.) 1 Chr. 2:34-38.
(3.) 1 Chr. 26:7.
(4.) 2 Chr. 23:1.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(serving).
+ Son of Boaz and Ruth the Moabitess and father of Jesse. (Ruth 4:17) (B.C. 1360.) The circumstances of his birth which make up all that we know about him are given with much beauty in the book of Ruth. The name of Obed occurs only (Ruth 4:17) and in the four genealogies, (Ruth 4:21,22; 1 Chronicles 2:12; Matthew 1:5; Luke 3:32) + A descendant of Jarha, the Egyptian slave of Sheshan, in the line of Jerahmeel. (1 Chronicles 2:37,38) (B.C. after 1014.) + One of David's mighty men. (1 Chronicles 11:47) (B.C. 1046.) + One of the gate-keepers of the temple; son of Shemaiah the first-born of Obed-edom. (1 Chronicles 26:7) (B.C. 1017.) + Father of Azariah, one of the captains of hundreds who joined with Jehoiada in the revolution by which Athaliah fell. (2 Chronicles 23:1) (B.C. before 876.)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
a servant; workman
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 9 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 9 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.
