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צָעַק

to cry out

‘to cry out’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓

H6817 Strong's Hebrew
tsâʻaq Transliteration
/tsaw-ak'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 55 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

“to cry out” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb צעק (tsâʻaq). The King James Version usually renders it “cried,” while modern versions prefer “cried out” (Berean Standard Bible) and “and” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) — see the renderings breakdown. With 53 verses in 16 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Genesis 4:10. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 4 stems (Qal, Niphal, and more). The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
[idiom] at all
Modern gloss
to cry out
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H6817 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 →

53
distinct verses
The word appears in 53 distinct verses.
16 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 16 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 4:10
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 4:10.
Lamentations 2:18
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Lamentations 2:18.
#686
by frequency
Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 686 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 53 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 18 · 34%
  • Historical 20 · 38%
  • Wisdom 7 · 13%
  • Prophets 8 · 15%

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 53 distinct verses.

  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 25 verses · 47%
  • Torah (Pentateuch) 18 verses · 34%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 10 verses · 19%

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: Cried 11×, He cried 5×, Cry 4×
  • American Standard Version: Cried 11×, Were gathered together 5×, Cry 4×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Cried out 14×, Cry out 6×, They cried out 4×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: And 9×, Cried out 9×, Cry out 6×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H6817 across 55 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Cried” 11×
  • “He cried” 5×
  • “Cry” 4×
  • “They cried” 4×
  • “Gathered themselves together” 3×
  • “They cry” 3×
  • “We cried” 2×

Plus 23 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 H6817 across 56 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Cried” 11×
  • “Were gathered together” 5×
  • “Cry” 4×
  • “He cried” 4×
  • “They cried” 3×
  • “They cry” 3×
  • “All” 2×
  • “We cried” 2×

Plus 22 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 H6817 across 55 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Cried out” 14×
  • “Cry out” 6×
  • “They cried out” 4×
  • “They cry out” 4×
  • “I cry out” 2×
  • “Were called out” 2×
  • “Were summoned” 2×

Plus 21 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 H6817 across 70 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “And” 9×
  • “Cried out” 9×
  • “Cry out” 6×
  • “They cried out” 5×
  • “He cried out” 4×
  • “Cried” 3×
  • “They cry out” 3×
  • “Was summoned” 3×
  • “I cry out” 2×
  • “Then” 2×
  • “Was crying out” 2×
  • “We cried out” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 18 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.


10 senses and sub-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 10 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. צ׳ 1 K 20:39 La 2:18, 3 fs. צָֽעֲקָה Dt 22:24 +, etc.; Impf. יִצְעַק Ex 23:22 +, etc.; Imv. fs. וְצַעֲקִי Je 22:20, וּצֳעָ֑קִי v 20; fpl. צְעַקְנָה 49:3; Inf. abs. צָעֹק Ex 22:22; cstr. לִצְעֹק 2 K 8:3; Pt. fs. abs. צֹעֶ֫קֶת 2 K 8:5; mpl. צֹעֲקִים Gn 4:10; Ex 5:8;— e.g. 1 Kings 20:39
  • 1. cry, cry out, for help, usually c. אֶל pers.;—
    • a. unto man Gn 41:55 (E; + ל rei), Nu 11:3 (JE), 1 K 20:39 2 K 6:26; 8:3 (+ אֶל rei), v 5 (+ עַל rei); sq. אמר Ex 5:15 (J), 2 K 4:1 and (אֶל pers. om.) Ex 5:8 (J), 2 K 4:40; 6:5. e.g. Genesis 41:55
    • b. especially unto י׳: Gn 4:10; Ex 8:3 (+ עַל־דְּבַר rei), 14:10, 15; 15:25; 17:4; 22:22 (צָעֹק יִצְעַק), v 26 Nu 12:13; 20:16 Jos 24:7 (all JE), Ju 4:3; 10:12; Dt 26:7; Is 19:20 (+ מִפְּנֵי rei), La 2:18; Ne 9:27 ψ 107:6, 28; קוֹלִי אֶל־א׳ וְאֶצְעָ֑קָה 77:2, cf. 34:18; c. לי׳ 2 Ch 13:14, נֶגְדֶּ֑ךָ ψ 88:2. e.g. Genesis 4:10
    • c. cry unto (אֶל) idol Is 46:7. e.g. Isaiah 46:7
  • 2. abs. cry, cry out, in distress, need;—Gn 27:34 (J; c. acc. cogn.), Dt 22:24, 27; Is 33:7 (‖ בָּכָה), 65:14 (‖ הֵילִיל, opp. רָנַן; c. מִן rei), Je 22:20(×2) (‖ נָתַן קוֹל), 49:3 (‖ הֵילִיל), Jb 35:12; c. obj. חָמָס Jb 19:7 (‖ אֲשַׁוַּע). e.g. Genesis 27:34
  • 3. make outcry, clamour, Is 42:2 (+ יִשָּׂא, יַשְׁמִיעַ קוֹלוֹ). e.g. Isaiah 42:2

Niphal

  • be summoned (i.e. to arms), abs.; Impf. 3 ms. וַיִּצָּעֵק Ju 7:23, 24; 12:1, so 3 mpl. וַיִּצֶּעֲקוּ 10:17; 2 K 3:21, sq. אַחֲרֵי שָׁאוּל + acc. loc. 1 S 13:4. e.g. Judges 7:23

Piel

Hiphil

  • call together וַיַּצְעֵק אֶת־הָעָם אֶל־י׳ הַמִּצְפָּה 1 S 10:17. e.g. 1 Samuel 10:17

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. cry, cry out, call (‖זָעַק; NH id.; Arabic صَعَقَ, perhaps orig. sound as thunder, cf. صَاعِقَةٌ thunderbolt, صَعِقَ bellow (of bull));—

— 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

Part of speech: Verb TWOT: 1947


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.

צָעַק

  • to cry; (cmp. צָוַוח) to complain. Mekh. Mishp. s. 18 (ref. to Ex. XXII, 22) יכול כל זמן שהוא צוֹעֵק וכ׳ lest you may think, when he cries, I hear him (take up his cause), and when he does not cry, I do not &c. B. Kam. 93ᵃ אוי לו לצוֹעֵק … הנִצְעָק woe to him who cries (prays for divine judgment to come down upon his neighbor) more than to him who is cried against. Ib. אחד לצועק ואחד לנצעק וכ׳ Ms. M. both are included (in Ex. l. c.) as deserving divine punishment, the crier and he who is cried against, only that they (in heaven) hasten to attend to the crier first &c. (differ. vers. quoted in Tosaf.). B. Mets. 75ᵇ שלשה צוֹעֲקִין ואינן נענין three persons cry in distress, and are not answered (because they are themselves to blame for their sufferings). Midr. Till. to Ps. XXXIV והיו צוֹצֲקוֹת שתיהן וכ׳ and both of them screamed and raged within &c. Men. 53ᵇ; a. fr. e.g. Exodus 22:22
    • to be complained of, v. supra.

צְעֵק

  • Targ. Josh. XXIV, 7. Targ. Jud. IV, 3.

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 46 distinct written forms H6817 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
וַ/יִּצְעֲק֣וּ Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Joshua 24:7 3
וַ/יִּצְעֲק֥וּ Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Exodus 5:15 3
וַ/יִּצְעַ֣ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 15:25 3
וַ/יִּצְעַ֥ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Genesis 41:55 3
וַ/יִּצְעַ֤ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 8:12 2
אֶצְעַ֣ק Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Job 19:7 1
וְ/אֶצְעָ֑קָה Verb, Qal, Cohortative, 1st Person, Common, Singular Psalms 77:1 1
וְ/צַֽעֲקִי֙ Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular Jeremiah 22:20 1
וַ/יִּצָּֽעֲקוּ֙ Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Judges 10:17 1
וַ/יִּצָּעֲק֗וּ Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 Kings 3:21 1
וַ/יִּצָּעֲק֥וּ Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 Samuel 13:4 1
וַ/יִּצָּעֵ֞ק Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Judges 7:24 1
וַ/יִּצָּעֵ֧ק Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Judges 7:23 1
וַ/יִּצָּעֵק֙ Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Judges 12:1 1
וַ/יַּצְעֵ֤ק Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Samuel 10:17 1
וַ/נִּצְעַ֕ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Plural Deuteronomy 26:7 1
וַ/נִּצְעַ֤ק Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Plural Numbers 20:16 1
וַ/תִּצְעֲק֣וּ Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Judges 10:12 1
וַֽ/יִּצְעֲק֖וּ Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 Chronicles 13:14 1
וּֽ/צְעָ֔קִי Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular Jeremiah 22:20 1
יִ֭צְעֲקוּ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Job 35:12 1
יִצְעֲק֣וּ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Nehemiah 9:27 1
יִצְעֲק֤וּ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Isaiah 19:20 1
יִצְעַ֖ק Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Isaiah 42:2 1
יִצְעַ֣ק Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 22:27 1
יִצְעַ֤ק Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Isaiah 46:7 1
יִצְעַק֙ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 22:23 1
לִ/צְעֹ֣ק Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 2 Kings 8:3 1
מְצַעֵק֙ Verb, Piel, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 Kings 2:12 1
צְעַקְנָה֮ Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Feminine, Plural Jeremiah 49:3 1
צָעֲק֖וּ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural Isaiah 33:7 1
צָעֲק֣וּ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural Psalms 34:17 1
צָעֲקָ֗ה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Deuteronomy 22:27 1
צָעֲקָ֣ה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Deuteronomy 22:24 1
צָעֲקָ֤ה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 2 Kings 6:26 1
צָעֲקָ֨ה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 2 Kings 4:1 1
צָעַ֖קְתִּי Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Psalms 88:1 1
צָעַ֣ק Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Kings 20:39 1
צָעַ֥ק Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Lamentations 2:18 1
צָעָ֗קוּ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 2 Kings 4:40 1
צָעֹ֤ק Verb, Qal, Infinitive Absolute Exodus 22:23 1
צֹֽעֲקִים֙ Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute Exodus 5:8 1
צֹעֲקִ֥ים Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute Genesis 4:10 1
צֹעֶ֣קֶת Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 2 Kings 8:5 1
תִּצְעֲקוּ֙ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Isaiah 65:14 1
תִּצְעַ֖ק Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Exodus 14:15 1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6817, 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 50 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 53 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.

Reading settings

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Old Testament
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