עַ֫יִר
donkey
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-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
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 6 times (60%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 3 times (30%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (10%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 10 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5895 appears — 8 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.
Genesis 2 verses
- Genesis 32:15 וַ/עְיָרִ֖ם conj + n c mp thirty milk camels and their colts, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty she-donkeys and ten foals.
- Genesis 49:11 עיר/ה עִיר֔/וֹ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms Binding his foal to the vine, His donkey's colt to the choice vine; He has washed his garments in wine, His robes in the blood of grapes:
Judges 2 verses
- Judges 10:4 עֲיָרִ֔ים עֲיָרִ֖ים n c mp n c mp He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkey colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havvoth Jair to this day, which are in the land of Gilead.
- Judges 12:14 עֲיָרִ֑ם n c mp He had forty sons and thirty sons' sons, who rode on seventy donkey colts: and he judged Israel eight years.
Job 1 verse
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 30:6 עֲיָרִ֜ים n c mp The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that shall not profit [them].
- Isaiah 30:24 וְ/הָ/עֲיָרִ֗ים conj + ptcl def.art + n c mp the oxen likewise and the young donkeys that till the ground shall eat savory provender, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fork.
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.
עיר (ʻayir) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “donkey.” Scripture first uses it in Genesis 32:15. It turns up in 8 verses across 5 books, an uncommon footprint. It concentrates in Genesis, which alone accounts for 25% of its uses. It clusters with עור, עיר and עיר under a shared root. 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 H5895 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 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 8 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 8 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 63%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 25%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 13%
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 5 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†: Ass colts 2×, Colt 2×
- American Standard Version†: Ass colts 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Donkeys 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Donkeys 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5895 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H5895 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H5895 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H5895 across 10† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
12 senses and sub-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 12 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.
עיר I [m.] agitation
עיר II
- 1. city, town, abode of men Gn 4:17 (J) and often; גְּדֹלָה 10:12 (J), +, or קְטַנָּה Ec 9:14 (cf. Gn 19:20); especially e.g. Genesis 4:17
- a. fortified: עָרִים בְּצֻרוֹת 2 S 20:6 +, etc., v. בָּצַר, מִבְצָר; עִיר מִבְצַר־צֹר Jos 19:29 (P) fortified city (of) Tyre, ע׳ מָצוֹר ψ 31:22 +, etc., v. מָצוֹר, מְצוּרָה sub צוּר (Mi 7:12 v. מָצוֹר p. 596 a); ע׳ עָז־לָנוּ Is 26:1, עָרֵי מָעוּזּוֹ 17:9; ע׳ דְּלָתַים וּבְרִיחַ 1 S 23:7; ע׳ חוֹמָה Lv 25:29, cf. v 30 (P), 1 K 4:13; on Ho 10:14 v. i. עַם 2 b (1 S 9:14 read הַשַּׁעַר 𝔊 We Dr al.). e.g. 2 Samuel 20:6
- b. opp. כֹּפֶר הַפְּרָוִי 1 S 6:18, עָרֵי הַפּ׳ Dt 3:5, ע׳ הַפְּרָזוֹת Est 9:19; disting. from dependencies חֲצֵרִים Jos 13:23 + often P e.g. 1 Samuel 6:18
- c. עָרֶיהָ are dependent towns Jos 13:17 (P), Je 19:15. e.g. Joshua 13:17
- d. עָרֵי הַמַּמְלָכָה Jos 10:2 (JE) royal cities (i.e. with a king, cf. Tel Am. al šarri;), so sg. 1 S 27:5, opp. עָרֵי הַשָּׂדֶה v 5 rural towns; ע׳ הַמְּלוּכָה 2 S 12:26 (but read ע׳ הַמַּיִם We Bu Kit Löhr HPS, v. 2 infr.). e.g. Joshua 10:2
- e. עָרֵי מִסְכְּנוֹת Ex 1:11 storage-cities, so 1 K 9:19 = 2 Ch 8:6; 2 Ch 8:4; 17:12; for מ׳ ע׳ נַפְתָּלִי 16:4 read prob. כִּנְרוֹת עַל־וגו׳ (as 1 K 15:20; Be Kit Buhl); cf. ע׳ הָרֶכֶב 1 K 9:19; 10:26 = 2 Ch 8:6; 9:25; 2 Ch 1:14; ע׳ הַפָּרָשִׁים 1 K 9:19 = 2 Ch 8:6. e.g. Exodus 1:11
- f. ע׳ (הַ)מִקְלָט (P) asylum-cities Nu 35:11, 13, 14; Jos 20:2, cf. Nu 35:25, 26, 27, 28, 32, ע׳ לְמִקְלָט v 12; ע׳ מִקְלַט הָרֹצֵחַ Jos 21:13 + 4 times 21. e.g. Numbers 35:11
- g. ע׳ (הָ)אֱלֹהִים = Jerus.: ψ 46:5; 87:3, cf. 48:2, 9; ע׳ י׳ Is 60:14 ψ 101:8; ע׳ י׳ צְבָאוֹת 48:9. e.g. Psalms 46:5
- h. city = inhabitants 1 S 4:13; 5:12; Is 22:2 Ru 1:19, so 2 S 20:22 (reading הָעִיר for MT הָעָם) 𝔊 We Dr al. (cf. also foll.). e.g. 1 Samuel 4:13
- i. combinations are: ע׳ רֹכְלִים Ez 17:4 city of merchants; ע׳ מוֹשָׁב ψ 107:4, 7, 36 city for dwelling; especially of character or condition: †ע׳ הַצֶּדֶק Is 1:26, †ע׳ הָאֱמֶת Zc 8:3; †ע׳ הַקֹּדֶשׁ Is 48:2; 52:1 Ne 11:1, 18, cf. Dn 9:24, all of Jerus.; עָרֵי קָדְשֶׁ֑ךָ Je 5:17 of Judaean cities; of foreign cities, ע׳ תְּהִלָּה Je 49:25, הַהֻלָּלָה הָע׳ Ez 26:17, הָע׳ הָעַלִּיזָה Zp 2:15; of Jerus. also הָע׳ הַיּוֹנָה Zp 3:1 oppressive city, ע׳ (הַ)דָּמִים bloody city Ez 22:2; 24:6, 9 and (of Nineveh) Na 3:1. e.g. Ezekiel 17:4
- 2. of fortress in a city especially עִיר דָּוִד 2 S 5:7, 9; 6:10 + often (v. דָּוִד); ע׳ בֵּית הַבָּ֑עַל 2 K 10:25 (crpt.; Klo proposes דְּבִיר for ע׳, cf. Kmp Benz Kit); ע׳ הַמַּיִם 2 S 12:27 (so read also v 26, see 1 d). e.g. 2 Samuel 5:7
- 3. appar. fortified place, of any size, בְּכָל־עָרֵיהֶם מִמִּגְדַּל נוֹצְרִים עַד־ עִיר מִבְצָר 2 K 17:9 = 18:8; cf. Nu 13:9 (P; but on comp. of ver. see Di); perhaps also ע׳ עֲמָלֵק 1 S 15:5 (HPS).—Ho 7:4 v. I. עור Hiph. e.g. 2 Kings 17:9
עיר III m. in בְּנֵי ע׳ 1 Ch 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
I. n.[m.] agitation;—of terror, ע׳ וּבֶהָלוֹת Je 15:8; of rage (si vera l.), לֹא אָבוֹא בְּעִיר Ho 11:9, but St proposes לְבָעֵר cf. We Oort Now GASm.—בָּעִיר ψ 73:20 v. עור Hiph.—ii, iii. עִיר v. p. 746 infr.
III. n.f. Gn 10:12 (AlbrechtZAW xvi. 49 f.) city, town (√ unkn.; NH id.;? Ph. ער Lzb345; Sab. ער fortified height (cf. 3) PräZMG xxvi (1872), 437, ערן, עהרן city CISiv. pp. 94, 95, 173);—ע׳ abs. Gn 4:17 +, cstr. 24:10 +; הָעִ֫ירָה 1 K 14:12 + 7 times; sf. עִירִי 2 S 19:38 + 2 times, etc.; pl. עָרִים Is 6:11 +, עֲיָרִים Ju 10:4 (textual error, or word-play, cf. GFM); cstr. עָרֵי Gn 19:29 +; sf. עָרַי Zc 1:17, עָרֵיכֶם Is 1:7 +, etc.;—
IV. n.pr.m. in בְּנֵי ע׳ 1 Ch 7:12, text dub., v. Be Kau.
I. n.m. Gn 32:16 male ass (young and vigorous);—pl. וַעְיָרִם Gn 32:16 (E); sf. עִירֹה 49:11 (poem; ‖ בְּנִי אֲתֹנוֹ); cstr. עַיִר פֶּרֶא (Ges§ 131 c N. 2; or appos. KöSynt.§ 333 s Di al.) Jb 11:12 wild ass’s colt; pl. עֲיָרִים, for riding Ju 10:4a (v 4 b see ii. עִיר), עֲיָרִם 12:14, sg. abs. עַיִר Zc 9:9; עֲיָרִים for carrying Is 30:6 Qr (Kt עורים), עֲיָרִם for tillage v 24.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from עור (ʻûwr) (H5782) — to awake.
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.
עֲיָירוֹת
- , pl. of עִיר.
*עַיִר
- (= h. עַיִר; v. עוּר; cmp. נַעַר) foal. Targ. Zech. IX, 9.—Pl. עַיְרִין. Targ. Jud. X, 4; v. עִיל.
עִיר I
- (עוּר) guardian, angel. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXVIII, 8 ולא ירד עמו לא ע׳ ולא שרף וכ׳ ed. Bub. (oth. ed. לא ע׳ ולא קדיש, borrowed from Dan. IV, 10) nor went down with him (Abraham) a guardian, or Seraph, or angel. Ib. to Ps. 1 (play on עיר, Gen. XI, 4) ואין ע׳ אלא אלוה ʿir means a deity (ref. to Dan. l. c.).—Pl. עִירִין. Pes. 33ᵃ (quot. fr. Dan. IV, 14) בגזירת ע׳ וכ׳ by the decree of the guardians (scholars) the word (is established) &c., i.e. they have so decided at college.—[עִיר awake, v. עוּר ch.] e.g. Daniel 4:10
עִיר II
- [watch-tower, fort,] town, city. B. Kam. 80ᵇ הלוקח ע׳ בארץ וכ׳ he who buys a township in Palestine, is bound by law to buy also the accesses to it on four sides. Snh. 17ᵇ כל ע׳ שאין בה עשרה וכ׳ in a town in which there are not the following ten things (institutions), a scholar is not permitted to live. Snh. I, 6 וכמה יהא בע׳ וכ׳ and how large must the population of a town be, to be fit as a seat for a Sanhedrin? Yoma 20ᵇ הָעִ׳ (Ms. M. רומי) the City of Rome; Pes. 119ᵃ בָּעִ׳ (Ms. M. ברומי) in Rome; a. v. fr.—Pl. עָרִים, עֲיָירוֹת. Tosef. Macc. III (II), 1; Macc. 9ᵇ שלש ע׳ הבדיל וכ׳ Moses set apart three towns (of refuge). Ib. II, 4, a. fr. עָרֵי מקלט, v. מִקְלָט. Meg. I, 1, sq.; 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 10 distinct written forms H5895 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וְ/הָ/עֲיָרִ֗ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Isaiah 30:24 | 1 |
| וְ/עַ֥יִר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Job 11:12 | 1 |
| וַ/עְיָרִ֖ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Genesis 32:15 | 1 |
| עֲיָרִ֑ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Judges 12:14 | 1 |
| עֲיָרִ֔ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Judges 10:4 | 1 |
| עֲיָרִ֖ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Judges 10:4 | 1 |
| עֲיָרִ֜ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Isaiah 30:6 | 1 |
| עִיר֔/וֹ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 49:11 | 1 |
| עַ֖יִר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Zechariah 9:9 | 1 |
| עיר/ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Genesis 49:11 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5895, 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
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 → Showing 4 of 9 — not the complete family. 4 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
