צָמֵא
to be thirsty
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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
Form
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 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
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (20%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 2 times (20%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 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 H6770 appears — 10 distinct verses across 6 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.
Exodus 1 verse
Judges 2 verses
- Judges 4:19 צָמֵ֑אתִי Qal pf 1cs He said to her, Please give me a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. She opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.
- Judges 15:18 וַ/יִּצְמָא֮ conj + Qal wimpf 3ms He was very thirsty, and called on Yahweh, and said, You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised.
Ruth 1 verse
Job 1 verse
Psalms 2 verses
Isaiah 3 verses
- Isaiah 48:21 צָמְא֗וּ Qal pf 3cp They didn't thirst when he led them through the deserts; he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them; he split the rock also, and the waters gushed out.
- Isaiah 49:10 יִצְמָ֔אוּ Qal impf 3mp They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun strike them: for he who has mercy on them will lead them, even by springs of water will he guide them.
- Isaiah 65:13 תִּצְמָ֑אוּ Qal impf 2mp Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be disappointed;
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 צמא centers on the idea of “to be thirsty.” Its earliest occurrence is Exodus 17:3. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 10 verses — uncommon. Isaiah dominates its distribution — 3 of 10 verses. Sharing its root, it stands alongside צמא and צמא. Dig into 10-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6770 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 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 10 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 10 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 50%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 40%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 10%
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 2 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†: Thirsteth 2×
- American Standard Version†: Athirst 1×, I am thirsty 1×, Soul thirsteth 1×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Go thirsty 1×, I am thirsty 1×, Or thirst 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Thirst 2×, Thirsts 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6770 across 10† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 H6770 across 10† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H6770 across 10† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H6770 across 14† 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 1 sense 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.
צמא I be thirsty (NH = BH (rare)
Qal
- Pf. 3 fs. צָֽמְאָה ψ 42:3; 63:2; 2 fs. וְצָמִת consec. Ru 2:9 (Ges§ 75 qq); 1 s. צָמֵתִי Ju 4:19 (Ges§ 74k); 3 pl. צָֽמְאוּ Is 28:21; Impf. 3 ms. וַיִּצְמָא Ex 17:3; Ju 15:18; 3 mpl. יִצְמָ֑אוּ Is 49:10, וַיִּצ׳ Jb 24:11; 2 mpl. תִּצְמָ֑אוּ Is 65:13;—be thirsty Ju 4:19; 15:18; Ru 2:9; Is 48:21; 49:10 (‖ יִרְעָ֑בוּ), 65:13 (‖ תִּרְעָ֑בוּ) Jb 24:11; c. ל rei, Ex 17:3 (E); fig. צָֽמְאָה נַפְשִׁי לֵאלֹהִים ψ 42:3 my soul thirsteth for God, cf. 63:2. e.g. Psalms 42:3
צמא II thirsty
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. vb. be thirsty (NH = BH (rare); so Arabic ظَمِىَٔ, Ethiopic ጸምአ Assyrian ṣûmu, thirst, etc.);—
II. adj. thirsty;—abs. צ׳ Is 21:14 +; fs. צְמֵאָה Dt 29:18; pl. צְמֵאִים ψ 107:5;—thirsty, usually + (or ‖) רָעֵב: 2 S 17:29; Pr 25:21 ψ 107:5, as subst. thirsty one Is 29:8; 32:6; so also 21:14, and (fig. of thirst for י׳’s favour) 55:1; צָמֵא 44:3 = thirsty place (Gunkl.c. proposes צְמֵאָה); הָרָוָה אֶת־הַצְּמֵאָה Dt 29:18 the watered (plant, herbage) with the thirsty, fig. of entire people.
— 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.
צָמֵא I
- (b. h.) [shrunk,] parched, thirsty. Taan. 22ᵇ לא שכורה ולא צ׳ that the ground be neither drunk (oversated) nor thirsty; a. e.—Pl. צְמֵאִים, צְמֵאִין; צְמֵאוֹת. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXVIII, 19 משקה צ׳ הייתי I used to give drink to the thirsty; והם אומרים לו זה השער לה׳ משקה צ׳ הכנס בו ed. Bub. and they (in heaven) say to him, ‘this is the gate of the Lord’, thou, who hast been a giver of drink to the thirsty, enter thereby. Midr. Till. to Ps. XXII וכשצ׳ כל החיות וכ׳ and when they are thirsty, all the beasts gather around her (the hind) &c.; a. e.
צָמֵא II
- preced.) to be thirsty.
- to cause to perish from thirst. Sifré Deut. 199 (ref. to Deut. XX, 10 להלחם עליה … ולא להַצְמִיאָהּ וכ׳ ‘to wage war against it’, but not to let it perish from famine or thirst, or cause it to die from pestilence; a. e. e.g. Deuteronomy 20:10
צָמָא
- preced.) thirst. Ex. R. s. 2 (Moses said to the lamb) לא … מפני צ׳ וכ׳ I did not know that thou didst run off on account of thirst; thou must be tired &c. Ber. VI, 8 השותה מים לִצְמָאוֹ he who drinks water to satisfy his thirst. Pirké d’R. El. ch. XXX מיתת הצ׳ death from thirst; a. e.
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 9 distinct written forms H6770 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| צָמְאָ֬ה | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Psalms 42:2 | 2 |
| וְ/צָמִ֗ת | Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular | Ruth 2:9 | 1 |
| וַ/יִּצְמָ֨א | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Exodus 17:3 | 1 |
| וַ/יִּצְמָֽאוּ | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Job 24:11 | 1 |
| וַ/יִּצְמָא֮ | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Judges 15:18 | 1 |
| יִצְמָ֔אוּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Isaiah 49:10 | 1 |
| צָמְא֗וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Isaiah 48:21 | 1 |
| צָמֵ֑אתִי | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Judges 4:19 | 1 |
| תִּצְמָ֑אוּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural | Isaiah 65:13 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6770, 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 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 10 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.
