צֵלָע
rib
also: side, beam fuller range ↓
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
- 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
- Both
- Attested as both masculine and feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
1 verse where H6763 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of Genesis. Filtered view — show all forms. 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
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.
צלע — transliterated tsêlâʻ — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “rib.” Its English rendering has broadened — “side” classically, “side of” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 32 verses in 6 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Exodus (47% of all occurrences). Alongside “rib” the lexicon also lists “side” and “beam” — part of its full sense range. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6763 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 →
- 32
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 32 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #891
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 891 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 32 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 32 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 17 verses · 53%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 14 verses · 44%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 3%
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: Side 15×, Side chambers 6×, Sides 4×
- American Standard Version: Side 13×, Side-chambers 7×, Sides 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Side 11×, Side rooms 9×, Sides 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Side of 9×, Side 8×, Its 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6763 across 41 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 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 H6763 across 40 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H6763 across 36 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 4 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H6763 across 53 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 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 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. rib of man Gn 2:21, 22 (J). e.g. Genesis 2:21
- 2. rib of hill, i.e. ridge, or terrace 2 S 16:13. e.g. 2 Samuel 16:13
- 3. side-chambers or cells (enclosing temple like ribs) 1 K 6:5, 6 (read הַצּ׳ for היצוע, v. [יָצִיעַ]), 7:3, so of Ezek.’s temple Ez 41:5 + 10 times 41 (on text v. Co Toy Krae). e.g. 1 Kings 6:5
- 4. ribs of cedar and fir, i.e. planks, boards (pl.), of temple wall 1 K 6:15, 16, floor v 15. e.g. 1 Kings 6:15
- 5. leaves of door v 34. e.g. 1 Kings 6:34
- 6. (in P) side, of ark (אֲרוֹן) Ex 25:12(×2), 14 = 37:3(×2), 5; of tabern. (מִשְׁכָּן) 26:20 (‖ פֵּאָה v 18), v 26, 27(×2) = 36:25 (‖ פ׳ v 23), v 31, 32, 26:35(×2); of altar 27:7 = 38:7, 30:4 = 37:27.—Je 20:10; Jb 18:12 v. צֶלַע sub II. צלע. e.g. Exodus 25:12
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.f.(m. 1 K 6:34, and appar. Ex 26:26) rib, side;—abs. צ׳ Gn 2:22 +, cstr. צֶ֫לַע Ex 26:26 +, also צֵ֫לַע 2 S 16:13; sf. צַלְעוֹ Ex 25:12 +; pl. צְלָעִים 1 K 6:34, צְלָעוֹת v 3 +; cstr. צַלְעֹת Ez 41:26 +; sf. צַלְעֹתָיו Gn 2:21 +;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from צלע (tsâlaʻ) (H6760) — to limp.
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.
צִילְעוֹת
- , pl. of צֵלָע.
צֵלַע
- Zela. Targ. II Sam. XXI, 14. Targ. Josh. XVIII, 28 צְלַע אֶלֶף.
צָלַע
- [to bend, hang over,] to halt; trnsf. to sin. Yalk. Num. 764 (ref. to Ps. XXXV, 15 sq.) כשאני צוֹלַעַת מעט וכ׳ as soon as I halt a little (am afflicted for my sins), they gather themselves against me; Pesik. R. s. 13 נכים עושים הדין בצוֹלְעִים the paralyzed execute judgment on the halting (the wicked punish the frail); ib. [read:] שמא נכים וחגרים עושים את הדין במי שצוֹלֵעַ are the paralyzed and the crippled to punish him who halts? e.g. Psalms 35:15
- . Ib. כשאני מְצַלַּעַת וכ׳ when I halt (sin), they rejoice.
צֶלַע
- preced.) halting; fall, sin. Pesik. R. s. 13 (v. preced.) יושבים … הצ׳ לבוא עלי they sit and look out, when I come to fall, that they may come against me. Midr. Till. to Ps. III (ref. to בצלע, II Sam. XVI, 13) מזכיר לו מעשה הצ׳ he (Shimei) reminded him (David) of the story of the fall (David’s crime); Yalk. Sam. 151. e.g. 2 Samuel 16:13
צֵלָע
- v. צָלַע)
- 1. side, rib. Ḥull. 42ᵇ נעקרה צ׳ מעיקרה if a rib of an animal is torn loose from its seat. Gen. R. s. 21 (ref. to Gen. III, 22) כל זמן … כאחד וכיון שנטלה צַלְעָתוֹ וכ׳ as long as he was Adam, he was like one (harmonious in himself), but when his rib was taken from him, he was ‘to know’ (the conflict between) ‘good and evil’; Yalk. ib. 34. Kidd. 6ᵃ צַלְעָתִי מהו if one says to a woman, ‘be thou my rib’ (alluding to Gen. II, 22), how is it (is this to be recognized as a betrothal)?; a. fr.—Pl. צְלָעוֹת. Ḥull. III, 1 נשתברו רוב צַלְעוֹתֶיהָ if the larger number of an animal’s ribs are broken. Ib. 52ᵃ ובצ׳ גדולות וכ׳ and it means the large ribs, those that have marrow in their bones; a. fr.—2) side of a hill or rock.—Pl. as ab. Shebi. V, 4; Y. ib. 36ᵃ top צִילְעוֹת constr., v. פּוּאָה. e.g. Genesis 3:22
- 3. wing of a building. B. Bath. 61ᵃ
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 28 distinct written forms H6763 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6763, 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
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 31 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 32 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.
