עָכַר
to trouble
also: stir up, disturb, make taboo 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”).
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
Form
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
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).
Person
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms 10 distinct
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 5 times (36%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Construct 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Niphal, Participle Active, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (7%)
+2 more forms (2 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 14 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H5916 appears — 13 distinct verses across 8 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 1 verse
Joshua 2 verses
- Joshua 6:18 וַ/עֲכַרְתֶּ֖ם conj + Qal wpf 2mp But as for you, only keep yourselves from the devoted thing, lest when you have devoted it, you take of the devoted thing; so would you make the camp of Israel accursed, and trouble it.
- Joshua 7:25 עֲכַרְתָּ֔/נוּ יַעְכֳּרְ/ךָ֥ Qal pf 2ms + sfx pers 1cp Qal impf 3ms + sfx pers 2ms Joshua said, Why have you troubled us? Yahweh shall trouble you this day. All Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire, and stoned them with stones.
Judges 1 verse
1 Samuel 1 verse
1 Kings 2 verses
- 1 Kings 18:17 עֹכֵ֥ר Qal ptcp.act ms It happened, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
- 1 Kings 18:18 עָכַ֨רְתִּי֙ Qal pf 1cs He answered, I have not troubled Israel; but you, and your father's house, in that you have forsaken the commandments of Yahweh, and you have followed the Baals.
1 Chronicles 1 verse
Psalms 1 verse
Proverbs 4 verses
- Proverbs 11:17 וְ/עֹכֵ֥ר conj + Qal ptcp.act ms The merciful man does good to his own soul, But he who is cruel troubles his own flesh.
- Proverbs 11:29 עוֹכֵ֣ר Qal ptcp.act ms He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind. The foolish shall be servant to the wise of heart.
- Proverbs 15:6 נֶעְכָּֽרֶת Niphal ptcp.act fs In the house of the righteous is much treasure, But the income of the wicked brings trouble.
- Proverbs 15:27 עֹכֵ֣ר Qal ptcp.act ms He who is greedy for gain troubles his own house, But he who hates bribes will live.
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 verb עכר centers on the idea of “to trouble.” Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 34:30. It appears 13 verses across 8 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. The word gravitates to Proverbs (31%), then Joshua and 1 Kings. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 2 stems (Qal, Niphal, and more). 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 H5916 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 →
- 13
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 13 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,910
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,910 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 13 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 13 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 6 verses · 46%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 46%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 8%
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: Troubleth 2×
- American Standard Version: Troubleth 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Brings trouble 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: One troubling 2×, Troubles 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5916 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 H5916 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 H5916 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 H5916 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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
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.
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 2 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.
Qal
- Pf. 3 ms. ע׳ 1 S 14:29; 2 ms. sf. עֲכַרְתָּ֔נִי Jos 7:25, etc.; Impf. 3 ms. sf. יַעְכָּרְךָ v 25; Pt. עֹכֵר 1 K 18:17 + 3 times, עוֹכֵר 1 Ch 2:7; pl. sf. עֹכְרָ֑י Ju 11:35;—disturb, trouble, c. acc. pers. Gn 34:30 (J), Jos 6:18; 7:25(×2) (all JE; v 25b subj. י׳), Ju 11:35; cf. Pr 11:17 (opp. גֹּמֵל), v 29; 15:27 (opp. חָיָה); ע׳ יִשְׂרָאֵל 1 K 18:17, 18; 1 Ch 2:7 (cf. Jos 6:18 etc., supr.); ע׳ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ 1 S 14:29. e.g. 1 Samuel 14:29
Niphal
- Pf. 3 ms. וּכְאֵבִי נֶעְכָּ֑ר ψ 39:3 my pain was stirred up; Pt. f. נֶעְכָּ֑רֶת Pr 15:6 usually as n. abstr. disturbance, calamity, but וּתְבוּאַת רָשָׁע נִכְרָ֑ת[ה] the income of the wicked is cut off (Toy). e.g. Psalms 39:3
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
vb. stir up, disturb, trouble (NH id., make turbid; Arabic عَكِرَ be turbid);—
— 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.
עָכַר
- (b. h.) to stir up, disturb; to trouble, make turbid; to sadden. Sot. 5ᵃ כל אדם … עוֹכַרְתּוֹ if a man has swelling of wind (haughtiness) in him, the slightest breeze will trouble him (the slightest adversity will upset him); מה ים … עוכרתו וכ׳ if the sea … is stirred up by the slightest breeze &c. Y. Keth. I, 25ᵇ bot. לעוֹכֵר את העין וכ׳ (not לעובר) like one troubling the eye, which becomes clear again. Ber. 25ᵇ עוֹכְרָן ברגלו he must stir them up with his foot. Gen. R. s. 80, end (ref. to עכרתם, Gen. XXXIV, 30) צלולה היתה החבית ועֲכַרְתֶּם אותה the wine in the cask was clear, and you have troubled it; Yalk. ib. 135 ועֲכַרְתּוּהָ. Nidd. 20ᵃ צללו חוזר ועוכרן if the mixture became clear (the earth settled), he must stir it again; a. fr.—Part. pass. עָכוּר; f. עֲכוּרָה; pl. עֲכוּרִים, עֲכוּרִין; עֲכוּרוֹת. Ib. אין … צלולין אלא ע׳ you must not examine the mixture when it is clear, but when it is turbid; Tosef. ib. III, 11. Gen. R. l. c. ע׳ היתה … וצללנו אותה the wine was turbid, and we cleared it (we redeemed our honor). Snh. 44ᵇ; Lev. R. s. 9 (ref. to Josh. VII, 25) היום הזה אתה ע׳ ואי אתה ע׳ וכ׳ thou art troubled (punished) this day, but thou shalt not be troubled in the hereafter. Sifré Deut. 48 שתה ממים של בוראך … מים ע׳ וכ׳ drink of the water of thy Creator’s well, and drink not muddy water, nor be attracted by the words of the heretics; Yalk. Prov. 937; a. fr.—Ex. R. s. 22 (ref. to Job XVI, 17) וכי יש תפלה ע׳ is there also a turbid prayer? Ib. מנין … שתפלתו ע׳ where is it intimated that the prayer of him in whose hand is robbery, is turbid (rejected)? e.g. Genesis 34:30
- to be stirred up; to become turbid, dreggy, foul. Nidd. 9ᵃ דם נ׳ ונעשה חלב the blood (of a pregnant animal) is disturbed (decomposed), and turns into milk. Y. Sot. IV, 19ᶜ bot. אין החלב נ׳ וכ׳ the milk (of a nursing woman) becomes turbid only after three months (after conception). Y. Nidd. II, end, 50ᵇ יצללו ולא יֵעָכְרוּ the water mixed with earth must settle and not be stirred up again; a. fr.—Men. IX, 5 (90ᵃ) הלח נ׳ היבש אינו נ׳ (Bab. ed. נעקר; Ms. M. נעבר, corr. acc.; v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) liquid emptied from a large measure into a smaller one is stirred up (and what remains in the large measure partakes of the sacred character of the liquid in the smaller, sacred vessels), whereas dry objects are not stirred up.
עֲכַר
- Targ. Gen. XXXIV, 30; a. fr.—Nidd. 20ᵃ דלא לרמיה … ולִיעַכְרִינְהוּ אבל במנא כי ע׳ וכ׳ that he must not throw the earth in with his hands to make the water turbid, but when the earth is in the vessel, and he stirs with his hands, it is right. Y. ib. II, end, 50ᵇ ר׳ … ע׳ R. Ḥ. stirred the mixture up (in order to examine the color); a. e.—Part. pass. עָכִיר; f. עֲכִירָא; pl. עֲכִירֵי; עֲכִירָן. Ḥull. 55ᵇ. Men. 53ᵃ דהוה ע׳ דעתיה (Ms. M. בדחא) that his mind was troubled; Yalk. Ex. 166; Yalk. Ps. 667 (not עבידא; v. Rabb. D. S. to Men. l. c. note 50).
- to be disturbed, spoiled. Targ. Prov. XV, 6.
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 13 distinct written forms H5916 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H5916, 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.
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 → 3 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 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 13 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
- Genesis 34:30
- Joshua 6:18
- Judges 11:35
- 1 Samuel 14:29
- 1 Kings 18:17
- 1 Chronicles 2:7
- Psalms 39:2
- Proverbs 11:17
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.
