עָרַץ
to tremble
also: dread, fear, oppress, prevail 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”). Here: ‘cause to tremble’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”). Here: ‘regard’
Form
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
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.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms 11 distinct
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 3 times (20%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Jussive, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Niphal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (7%)
+3 more forms (3 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 15 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H6206 appears — 15 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.
Deuteronomy 4 verses
- Deuteronomy 1:29 תַֽעַרְצ֥וּ/ן Qal impf 2mp + sfx n Then I said to you, Don't dread, neither be afraid of them.
- Deuteronomy 7:21 תַעֲרֹ֖ץ Qal impf 2ms You shall not be scared of them; for Yahweh your God is in the midst of you, a great and awesome God.
- Deuteronomy 20:3 תַּֽעַרְצ֖וּ Qal juss 2mp and shall tell them, Hear, Israel, you draw near this day to battle against your enemies: don't let your heart faint; don't be afraid, nor tremble, neither be scared of them;
- Deuteronomy 31:6 תַּעַרְצ֖וּ Qal juss 2mp Be strong and of good courage, don't be afraid, nor be scared of them: for Yahweh your God, he it is who does go with you; he will not fail you, nor forsake you.
Joshua 1 verse
Job 2 verses
Psalms 2 verses
Isaiah 6 verses
- Isaiah 2:19 לַ/עֲרֹ֥ץ prep + Qal inf.cs Men shall go into the caves of the rocks, And into the holes of the earth, From before the terror of Yahweh, And from the glory of his majesty, When he arises to shake the earth mightily.
- Isaiah 2:21 לַ/עֲרֹ֥ץ prep + Qal inf.cs To go into the caverns of the rocks, And into the clefts of the ragged rocks, From before the terror of Yahweh, And from the glory of his majesty, When he arises to shake the earth mightily.
- Isaiah 8:12 תַעֲרִֽיצוּ Hiphil impf 2mp Don't you say, "A conspiracy!" concerning all about which this people shall say, "A conspiracy!" neither fear their fear, nor be in dread [of it].
- Isaiah 8:13 מַֽעֲרִֽצְ/כֶֽם Hiphil ptcp.act ms cs + sfx pers 2mp Yahweh of hosts, him shall you sanctify; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
- Isaiah 29:23 יַעֲרִֽיצוּ Hiphil impf 3mp But when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name; yes, they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall stand in awe of the God of Israel.
- Isaiah 47:12 תַּעֲרֽוֹצִי Qal impf 2fs Stand now with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth; if so be you shall be able to profit, if so be you may prevail.
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 ערץ centers on the idea of “to tremble.” First canonically at Deuteronomy 1:29, it enters the text early. It turns up in 15 verses across 5 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to Isaiah (40%), then Deuteronomy and Job. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 3 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 H6206 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 →
- 15
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 15 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,836
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,836 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 15 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Isaiah 6 verses 40%
- Deuteronomy 4 verses 27%
- Job 2 verses 13%
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 15 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 7 verses · 47%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 4 verses · 27%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 27%
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: Be afraid 2×, Shake terribly 2×
- American Standard Version: Shake mightily 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Be terrified 2×, Feared 2×, Or terrified 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Do 3×, Terrify 3×, Be terrified 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6206 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 H6206 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 H6206 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 H6206 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 5 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
- 1. cause to tremble (i.e. strike with awe)
- 2. intrans. tremble, feel dread
Niphal
- . terrible in the company of the holy ones
Hiphil
- 1. regard, or treat, with awe, as awful
- 2. inspire with awe
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
[ עָרַץ ] vb. cause to tremble, tremble (in terror, or awe)
— 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.
עָרַץ
- (b. h.) to be strong; to frighten.
- to proclaim the power of, praise. Pirké d’R. El. ch. IV מַעֲרִיצִים ומקדושים וכ׳ they praise and sanctify his great name; Yalk. Is. 271; a. e.
עֵרֶץ
- , pl. עֲרָצִין, substitute for עֲרָכִין, v. עֵרֶף.
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 H6206 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 H6206, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 14 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 15 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.
