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צֶרֶת הַשַּׁ֫חַר

Zareth-shahar

BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Zareth-shahar’ fuller range ↓

H6890 Strong's Hebrew
Tsereth hash-Shachar Transliteration
/tseh'-reth hash-shakh'-ar/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 2 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.

“Zareth-shahar” is the headline sense of the Hebrew name צרת השחר (Tsereth hash-Shachar). It occurs a mere 1 verse across Scripture. More than three-quarters of its appearances fall in Joshua. Its lone occurrence is Joshua 13:19. See 1-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
Zareth-shahar
Modern gloss
Zareth-shahar
Strong's 1890 agrees
Strong's 1890 and current BDB scholarship align on this entry's primary sense — a good signal that the gloss above is unambiguous and stable. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H6890 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 →

1
distinct verses
The word appears in 1 distinct verse.
1 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
Joshua 13:19
only appearance
This word occurs only once, in Joshua 13:19.
#4,807
by frequency
Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,807 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 1 occurrence in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 0 · 0%
  • Historical 1 · 100%
  • Wisdom 0 · 0%
  • Prophets 0 · 0%

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 1 distinct verse.

  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 100%

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: Zarethshahar 1×
  • American Standard Version: Zereth-shahar 1×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Zereth-shahar 1×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Zereth shahar 2×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H6890 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:

  • “Zarethshahar” 1×

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders H6890 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:

  • “Zereth-shahar” 1×

Berean Standard Bible Public Domain

Renders H6890 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:

  • “Zereth-shahar” 1×

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H6890 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Zereth shahar” 2×

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.

  1. Zareth-shahar = "splendour of the dawn"
  2. a town in Reuben

Word origin

צֶרֶת הַשַּׁ֫חַר n.pr.loc. assigned to Reuben Jos 13:19

— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.

Derived from צרת (Tsereth) (H6889) — Zereth.

Part of speech: Proper Name Location


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.

שָׁחַר I

  • to break through, dig; to search, seek. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXIX, 9 ששוקדים ושׁוֹחֲרִים וכ׳ they watch, and search, and investigate &c.
    • to pass through a cavity or a groove. Bets. 35ᵇ (ref. to Mish. ib. V, 1 ומאן דתני מַשְׁחִירִין וכ׳ nor is he wrong who reads mashḥirin (in place of משילין, referring for evidence to השחור, v. שָׁחוֹר II).
    • (cmp. כָּרָה) to choose, select. Gen. R. s. 39 שִׁחַרְתִּיךָ לי, v. רֶחֶם; Yalk. Ps. 869.

שְׁחַר

  • , to search, inquire. Targ. Is. VIII, 20.

שָׁחַר II

  • to be charred, black.—V. שָׁחוֹר I.
    • 1. to blacken. Y. Ḥag. II, 77ᵈ הִשְׁחִירוּ פניהן וכ׳ they made their faces as black as the bottom of a pot, i.e. they ruined their reputation. Sabb. 152ᵃ (ref. to Koh. XI, 10) דברים … מַשְׁחִירִים וכ׳ certain things which a man does in his young days make his face look black (sickly) in his old age; a. e. e.g. Ecclesiastes 11:10
    • 2. to become black. Y. Bets. II, end, 61ᵈ הִשְׁחִירוּ שיניו וכ׳ his teeth were black from fasting; Y. Sabb. V, end, 7ᶜ; Ḥag. 22ᵇ הוּשְׁחֲרוּ שיניו (Hof.; Ms. M. פניו). Ex. R. s. 1 (play on אשחור, II Chr. I, 24) שחִשְׁחִירוּ פניו בתעניות his face was black from fasting. Y. Shebi. VI, 36ᵈ bot. מכיון שה׳ as soon as it (the onion in the ground) gets black. Y. Snh. VIII, beg. 26ᵃ הִשְׁחִירָה הקדרה, v. בָּשַׁל; a. e. e.g. 2 Chronicles 1:24
    • to become black, v. supra.

שְׁחַר ²

    • to get black. Succ. 33ᵇ דאַשְׁחוּר אימת when did they (the berries on the myrtle branch) become black?
    • to blacken. B. Mets. 117ᵇ דקא"ל קא מְשַׁחְרַת לי לכותלאי Ms. M. (differ. in ed., v. שַׁחְרוּרִיתָא) he may say to him, thou wilt make my wall black (by living in my house).—Part. pass. מְשַׁחַר; f. מְשַׁחְרָא; pl. מְשַׁחְרֵי; מְשַׁחְרָן. Yoma 28ᵇ מכי מש׳ כותלי when the walls begin to grow dark (are no longer shone upon by the sun), v. כּוֹתְלָא. Ber. 28ᵃ חזנהו … דמש׳ he saw that the walls of his room were sooty. Lam. R. to I, 1 רבתי (חד מאת׳ 8) רישיה גריע ומְשַׁחְרִין אפוי (not ושיחרור) his head shaved, and his face blackened; a. e.

שָׁחַר III

  • Hif. הִשְׁחִיר (denom. of שַׁחַר) to be early in doing; to get up early. Lev. R. s. 19, beg. מי שמַשְׁחִיר וכ׳, v. עָרַב II. Midr. Sam. ch. V ע"י שה׳ והעריב בהן because he was engaged in their study early and late; a. e.
    • (b. h.) same, to do a thing early or diligently. Ex. R. s. 1 (ref. to Prov. XIII, 24) לפי ששִׁחֲרוֹ מוסר וכ׳ because he corrected him betimes (or earnestly), he loved him. Ib. היה יצחק מְשַׁחֵר מוסר ליעקב וכ׳ Isaac trained Jacob &c. e.g. Proverbs 13:24

שְׁחַר ³

  • Ex. R. s. 47 למדו תורה דשְׁחִירִין ודקרין בלילה (ed. Wil. דשַׁחְרִין, some ed. דשִׁיחֲרִין) learn the Law from those who get up early (to study), and who read (teach) by night, opp. אִימְּטִין q. v.
    • same. Targ. Is. XXIX, 20 (h. text שקד).

שְׁחַר IV

  • (cmp. שחרר, v.חרם), Pa. שַׁחֵר [to declare a thing or man free, ownerless property,] to confiscate, press into public service. Targ. O. Num. XVI, 15 שָׁחַרִית ed. Berl. (Mss. שְׁחָרִ׳, שַׁחֲרֵית, שָׁחָרִ׳, v. Berl. O. II, p. 42; Y. I שְׁחָרִית). Targ. I Sam. XII, 3.—Ber. 56ᵃ חזית דמְשַׁחְרֵי לך פרסאי וכ׳ (Ms. M. דמשחדי, corr. acc.) thou shalt see in thy dream that the Parthians press thee into service &c. Ib. דמשחדי לך רומאי Ms. M. (corr. acc.; ed. אתו רומאי ושבו לך).—Part. pass. Pe. שָׁחִיר; f. שְׁחִירְתָּא sent abroad. Targ. Hos. VII, 11 כיונה ש׳ דאיתנסבן בנהא ed. Lag. (ed. שְׁרִיתֲתָא, q. v.) as a dove sent abroad when her young were taken away (h. text פותה, v. Midr. Till. to Ps. LXXXIV).

שַׁחַר

  • morning dawn, early morning. Ber. IV, 1 תפלת הש׳ the morning prayer. Ib. I, 4 בש׳ מברך וכ׳ when reading the Sh’mʿa in the morning prayer, you recite two benedictions &c. Tam. IV, 1 של ש׳ (sub. תמיד) the daily offering of the morning; a. v. fr.—עמוד הש׳, v. עַמּוּד.—אילת הש׳, v. אַיָּלָה.—Pl. שְׁחָרִין, v. שַׁחֲרִית.

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 2 distinct written forms H6890 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
הַשַּׁ֖חַר Noun, Proper Joshua 13:19 1
וְ/צֶ֥רֶת Noun, Proper Joshua 13:19 1

Bible dictionary

Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Zareth-shahar). 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

The splendour of the dawn, a city "in the mount of the valley" (Josh. 13:19). It is identified with the ruins of Zara, near the mouth of the Wady Zerka Main, on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, some 3 miles south of the Callirrhoe. Of this town but little remains. "A few broken basaltic columns and pieces of wall about 200 yards back from the shore, and a ruined fort rather nearer the sea, about the middle of the coast line of the plain, are all that are left" (Tristram's Land of Moab).

Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863

(splendor of the dawn), a place mentioned only in (Joshua 13:19) in the catalogue of the towns allotted to Reuben.

Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.


Septuagint verse parallels

This word appears in 1 verse that also exists in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 1 Hebrew verse 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

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

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English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

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