צֹ֫עַר
Zoar
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Zoar’ fuller range ↓
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
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H6820 appears — 9 distinct verses across 4 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 6 verses
- Genesis 13:10 צֹֽעַר n Proper Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar.
- Genesis 14:2 צֹֽעַר n Proper that they made war with Bera, king of Sodom, and with Birsha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, king of Admah, and Shemeber, king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar).
- Genesis 14:8 צֹ֑עַר n Proper There went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar); and they set the battle in array against them in the valley of Siddim;
- Genesis 19:22 צֽוֹעַר n Proper Hurry, escape there, for I can't do anything until you get there." Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
- Genesis 19:23 צֹֽעֲרָ/ה n Proper + sfx dem The sun was risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
- Genesis 19:30 מִ/צּ֜וֹעַר בְּ/צ֑וֹעַר prep + n Proper prep + n Proper Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters.
Deuteronomy 1 verse
Isaiah 1 verse
Jeremiah 1 verse
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 name צער centers on the idea of “Zoar.” Genesis dominates its distribution — 6 of 9 verses. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 9 verses — uncommon. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 13:10. For the data behind this summary, explore 9-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6820 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 →
- 9
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 9 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 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 9 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Genesis 6 verses 67%
- Deuteronomy 1 verse 11%
- Isaiah 1 verse 11%
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 9 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 7 verses · 78%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 22%
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: Zoar 8×
- American Standard Version: Zoar 8×
- Berean Standard Bible: Zoar 9×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Zoar 6×, Is zoar 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6820 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H6820 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H6820 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears 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 H6820 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- Zoar = "insignificance"
- a city at the southeast end of the Dead Sea grouped with Sodom and Gomorrah as being one of the 5 cities slated for…
Word origin
n.pr.loc. Zoar (understood as insignificance, cf. Gn 19:20);—Σηγωρ, 𝔊L Σιγωρ, but Gn 13:10 Je 48:34 Ζογορ(α); on 𝔊 cf. furhter LagBN 54 f.: city at SE. end of Dead Sea, צֹעַר Gn 13:10; 14:2, 8 (both = בֶּלַע), Dt 34:3; Is 15:5; Je 48:34; צוֹעַר Gn 19:22, 30(×2); c. ה loc., צֹ֫עֲרָה v 23 + Je 48:4 (for MT צעוריה), 𝔊 Ζογορα, JDMich Ew Gf Gie al.—cf. BuhlGeogr. 271. 274 GASmGeogr. 506 f. 678 (App.).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from צער (tsâʻar) (H6819) — to become small.
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.
צָעַר
- (b. h.)
- 1. to be narrow, slender, young, v. צוֹעֵר, צׇעִיר.
- 2. to be restrained, suffer privation, pain. Taan. 11ᵃ, v. infra.
- to lessen; to subordinate. Gen. R. s. 6 (ref. to הצעיר, Gen. XLVIII, 14) על ידי שהיה מַצְעִיר את עסקיו וכ׳ because he subordinated his affairs (was contented with lesser services), he was privileged to be invested with the rights of the firstborn; הגדול שהוא מצעיר וכ׳ if a great man applies himself to minor services, how much more (is he praiseworthy)!—Part. pass. מוּצְעָר, q. v. e.g. Genesis 48:14
- 1. to narrow, restrain; to inflict pain, annoy. Naz. 19ᵃ; 22ᵃ, a. e. (ref. to Num. VI, 11) ומה זה שלא צי׳ עצמו … המְצַעֵר עצמו וכ׳ if this (Nazarite) who denied himself only the enjoyment of wine is called a sinner, how much more so he who denies himself all enjoyments of life! Taan. 11ᵃ יִצְעַר … במשה רבינו שצי׳ עצמו וכ׳ man must suffer (deny himself enjoyments), when the community suffers; for thus we find that Moses afflicted himself (by sitting on a stone, Ex. XVII, 12) &c.; ib. וכל המצער עצמו עם וכ׳ (Ms. M. וכל המצער עם, insert עצמו, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) and he who afflicts himself in sympathy with the community, will be allowed to see the comfort of the community; Yalk. Gen. 148, a. e. המִצְטַעֵר. Snh. 11ᵃ אתה הוא שצִיעַרְתָּ לאבא wast thou the one who annoyed my father (with the smell of garlic)? Ab. Zar. 40ᵇ ואתה מְצַעֲרֵינִי and thou didst let me be in pain (without telling me of the remedy)?; a. fr.—2) *to suffer. Yalk. Is. 333, v. צָרַר. e.g. Numbers 6:11
- to feel pain; to suffer privation; to grieve, trouble one’s self. Yalk. Gen. l. c., a. e., v. supra. Ḥag. 15ᵇ בזמן שאדם מִצְטַעֵר וכ׳ when a man suffers (the penalty of the law), what does the Shekhinah say?; אם כך הקב"ה מצטער וכ׳ if the Lord thus grieves over the blood of the wicked (convict), how much more does he grieve over the blood of the righteous that is shed!; Ms. M. 1 אם כן מצטער אני וכ׳; Ms. M. 2 מִצְטַעֲרֵנִי if thus I (the Lord) grieve &c. Snh. 46ᵃ; Yalk. Deut. 930. Succ. 26ᵃ, a. e. מצטער פטור וכ׳ he that feels uncomfortable (cold) is exempt from sitting in the Succah (contrad. fr. חולה). Meg. 16ᵃ sq. אפשר דבר שנצ׳ בו … יכשל בו is it possible that this righteous man (Joseph) should commit the same wrong from which he himself had suffered (to make distinctions between brothers)? Yoma 74ᵇ; Y. ib. VIII, 44ᵈ top (ref. to Lev. XVI, 29) יכול ישב … ויִצְטַעֵר you may think, one must sit in the sun or in the cold in order to afflict one’s self. Bab. ib. 19ᵇ כל ימי הייתי מצט׳ על וכ׳ all my life-time have I been troubling myself about this verse (Lev. XVI, 2) thinking, when shall I have an opportunity to carry it into practice (in accordance with the Sadducean interpretation of it) &c. Sifré Deut. 354 הואיל ונִצְטַעַרְנוּ וכ׳ since we have gone to the trouble of coming here &c.; a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 16:29
צְעֵר
- ; (act. verb) צְעַר [to diminish,] disregard, shame, curse (cmp. גדף, חסד). Targ. II Esth. II, 5 (transl. of תקלל, Ex. XXII, 27). Targ. Prov. XXX, 11 נִיצְעֵיר ed. Lag. (oth. ed. נִצְעַר; ed. Wil. נְצַעֵר Pa.; h. text קלל). Ib. 10 נִיצְעֲרִיךְ ed. Lag. (oth. ed. נְצַעֲרִינָךְ, Pa.). e.g. Exodus 22:27
- 1. same, v. supra.—Meg. 28 same, v. supra.—Meg. 28ᵃ when going to bed he used to pray, שרא … לכל מאן דצַעֲרָן the Lord forgive every one that may have insulted me.
- 2. to afflict, grieve, trouble. Targ. Y. Deut. XXVI, 6 (not צעד׳). Targ. Job XVIII, 4; a. fr.—Ber. 10ᵃ הוו קא מְצַעֲרֵי ליה טובא they annoyed him exceedingly. Ib. 27ᵇ עד כמה נצַעֲרִיה וניזיל how long shall he go on vexing him? Naz. 23ᵇ; Hor. 10ᵇ sq. (ref. to Deut. II, 9) מלחמה הוא דלא הא צַעוּרֵי צֵעֲרִינְהוּ war you must not wage (against Moab), but you may afflict them (put them under tribute); אפי׳ צַעוּרֵי לא you must not even afflict them (the Ammonites); (B. Kam. 38ᵇ עביד בהו אנגריא). Y. Snh. I, 18ᶜ bot. כן … לצעורי וכ׳ is that your custom, to trouble your teacher? Ḥull. 95ᵃ לצַעוּרֵיה, v. כּוּן ch.; a. fr. e.g. Deuteronomy 2:9
- 3. to grieve, take pains. Ber. 18ᵇ הוו מְצַעֲרֵי לאדכוריה they took pains (in vain) to recall (what they had learned; Ms. M. הוו יתבי ומִצְטַעֲרֵי they sat and grieved; v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note).
- to suffer, grieve, be vexed, troubled. Targ. Y. Num. XI, 1 (h. text מתאננ׳). Targ. Ps. VII, 15; a. fr.—Keth. 104ᵃ חלץ … וקמִצְטַעֵר he put his T’fillin off and put them on again, and was in pain. Sabb. 140ᵇ עד דמִיצְטַעֲרָן until they were vexed (by curiosity). Succ. 52ᵃ. Ber. 18ᵇ Ms. M, v. supra; a. fr.
צַעַר
- (preced.) pain, grief, trouble. B. Kam. VIII, 1, v. נֵזֶק. Ib. 84ᵃ; 26ᵇ (ref. to Ex. XXI, 25) ליתן צ׳ במקום נזק this intimates that you must decree indemnity for pain even where injury has been inflicted (in addition to damages for mayhem). Snh. 19ᵇ, a. e. צ׳ גידול בנים, v. גִּידּוּל. Taan. 11ᵃ בזמן … שרוי בצ׳ when the community is in trouble (and holds a fast). Ib. הואיל וישראל שרויין בצ׳ … עמהם בצ׳ as Israel is in trouble (suffering the privations of warfare), I (Moses), too, will suffer privations with them, v. צָעַר. Ib. 10ᵇ בדבר של צ׳ עושה … צ׳ הוא לו in a matter of affliction, one may act (as if he were a distinguished person) …, for his motive is not self-elevation but affliction (sympathy with public sufferings). Gen. R. s. 52, end צַעֲרוֹ של איש וכ׳ the privation (abstinence from sexual contact) is felt more intensely by the man than by the woman. B. Mets. 31ᵃ משום דאיכא צ׳ בעלי חיים because there is suffering of animals connected with the case (which must be relieved). Ib. 32ᵇ; Sabb. 128ᵇ צ׳ בעלי חיים דאורייתא the duty of relieving the suffering of beasts is a Biblical law; a. v. fr. e.g. Exodus 21:25
צַעַר ²
- 1. (v. צְעֵר) degradation, disregard, shame. Targ. Prov. III, 35 (h. text קלון); a. fr.—Ib. XIV, 3 זקתא דצ׳ rod of humiliation (h. text חטר גאוה).—Pl. צַעֲרֵי. Ib. VI 33.
- 2. pain, grief, privation. Targ. Gen. III, 16. Targ. I Chr. IV, 9; a. fr.—Gen. R. s. 82 (transl. בן אוני, Gen. XXXV, 18) בר צַעֲרִי child of my pain. Ber. 28ᵃ מאי משמע דהאי נוגי לישנא דצ׳ הוא what evidence is there that nugé (Zeph. III, 18) has the meaning of grief? B. Mets. 31ᵃ דצ׳ דמרה איתא וצ׳ דידה איתא where both the owner and the animal suffer; a. fr.—Pl. צַעֲרִין, צַעֲרֵי. Targ. O. Gen. III, 16. Targ. Job IX, 28. Targ. Ps. CXLVII, 3; a. fr. e.g. Genesis 35:18
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 8 distinct written forms H6820 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| צֹֽעַר | Noun, Proper | Deuteronomy 34:3 | 3 |
| בְּ/צ֑וֹעַר | Noun, Proper | Genesis 19:30 | 1 |
| מִ/צּ֜וֹעַר | Noun, Proper | Genesis 19:30 | 1 |
| מִ/צֹּ֨עַר֙ | Noun, Proper | Jeremiah 48:34 | 1 |
| צֹ֑עַר | Noun, Proper | Genesis 14:8 | 1 |
| צֹ֖עַר | Noun, Proper | Isaiah 15:5 | 1 |
| צֹֽעֲרָ/ה | Noun, Proper | Genesis 19:23 | 1 |
| צֽוֹעַר | Noun, Proper | Genesis 19:22 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H6820, 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
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 → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Zoar). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Small, a town on the east or south-east of the Dead Sea, to which Lot and his daughters fled from Sodom (Gen. 19:22, 23). It was originally called Bela (14:2, 8). It is referred to by the prophets Isaiah (15:5) and Jeremiah (48:34). Its ruins are still seen at the opening of the ravine of Kerak, the Kir-Moab referred to in 2 Kings 3, the modern Tell esh-Shaghur.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(smallness), one of the most ancient cities of the land of Canaan. Its original name was Bela. (Genesis 14:2,8) It was in intimate connection with the cities of the "plain of Jordan"--Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, See also (Genesis 13:10) but not Genesis10:19 In the general destruction of the cities of the plain Zoar was spared to afford shelter to Lot. (Genesis 19:22,23,30) It is mentioned in the account of the death of Moses as one (of the landmarks which bounded his view from Pisgah, (34:3) and it appears to have been known in the time both of Isaiah, (Isaiah 15:5) and Jeremiah. (Jeremiah 48:34) These are all the notices of Zoar contained in the Bible. It was situated in the same district with the four cities already mentioned, viz. in the "plain" or "circle" of the Jordan, and the narrative of (Genesis 19:1)... evidently implies that it was very near to Sodom. vs. (Genesis 19:15; 23:27) The definite position of Sodom is, and probably will always be, a mystery; but there can be little doubt that the plain of the Jordan was at the north side of the Dead Sea and that the cities of the plain must therefore have been situated there instead of at the southern end of the lake, as it is generally taken for granted they were. [Sodom] (But the great majority of scholars from Josephus and Eusebius to the present of the Dead Sea.)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
little; small
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 9 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.
