רֵאשִׁית
beginning
also: first, best, chief 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
- 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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H7225 appears in the Book of 2 Chronicles — 1 distinct verse. 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.
2 Chronicles
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 noun ראשית centers on the idea of “beginning.” Its English rendering has broadened — “beginning” classically, “first of” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 49 verses — moderately common. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 1:1. Alongside “beginning” the lexicon also lists “first”, “best”, and “chief” — part of its full sense range. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7225 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 →
- 49
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 49 distinct verses.
- 19 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 19 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #723
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 723 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 49 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Deuteronomy 6 verses 12%
- Jeremiah 6 verses 12%
- Proverbs 5 verses 10%
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 49 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 17 verses · 35%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 16 verses · 33%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 16 verses · 33%
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: Beginning 12×, Firstfruits 10×, First 8×
- American Standard Version: Beginning 11×, First 9×, First-fruits 9×
- Berean Standard Bible: Firstfruits 10×, Beginning 9×, Best 6×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: First of 15×, Beginning of 7×, Beginning 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7225 across 50 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7225 across 49 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 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 H7225 across 49 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 19 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 H7225 across 51 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 3 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.
- a. beginning, of kingdom Gn 10:10 (J), year Dt 11:12, reign Je 26:1; 27:1; 28:1; 49:34; = first phase, step, or element in course of events Is 46:10 (opp. אַחֲרִית); of a thing (דָּבָר) Ec 7:8 (opp. id.); of sin Mi 1:13, strife Pr 17:14, wisdom ψ 111:10, knowledge Pr 1:7; thy beginning Jb 8:7 = thine early life, so his beginning 42:12 (both opp. אַחֲרִית); ר׳ before cl., בְּר׳ בָּרָא א׳ Gn 1:1 in the beginning when God created (> abs. in the beginning God created); ר׳ אֹנִי 49:3 (poem) beginning (first product) of my manly vigour (‖ בְּכֹרִי, כֹּחִי), so Dt 21:17 ψ 78:51 (both ‖ בְּכוֹר), 105:36; cf. ר׳ דַּרְכֵי אֵל Jb 40:19 (of hippopot.), ר׳ דַּרְכּוֹ Pr 8:22 (of wisdom); = first season (of a tree) Ho 9:10; ר׳ גּוֹיִם Nu 24:20 (JE), first, earliest, of nations. e.g. Genesis 10:10
- b. first of fruits Ex 23:19 (E), 34:26 (JE), Dt 26:2, 10; Ez 44:30a, of harvest Lv 23:10 (H), grain Dt 18:4; 2 Ch 31:5, dough Nu 15:20, 21 (P), Ez 44:30b; Ne 10:38, wool Dt 18:4; of כָּל־תְּבוּאָחֶ֑ךָ Pr 3:9; Israel is ר׳ תְּבוּאָתֹה Je 2:3 (i.e. of י׳’s increase); ר׳ = first-fruits Lv 2:12 (P), Nu 18:12 (P), Ne 12:44; ר׳ הָאָרֶץ Ez 48:14. e.g. Exodus 23:19
- 2. first, chief, Am 6:1; ר׳ גְּבוּרָתָם Je 49:35 (of bows); so appar. ר׳ בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן Dn 11:41, i.e. the principal part of them (Buhl Marti conj. שְׁאֵרִית, after 𝔖); ר׳ מַשְׂאוֹתֵיכֶם Ez 20:40, i.e. your chief oblations; ר׳ שְׁמָנִים Am 6:6, i.e. choice oils; = choice part, of land Dt 33:21, offering 1 S 2:29, הַחֵרֶם 15:21; abs. chief thing Pr 4:7 (of wisdom). e.g. Amos 6:1
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. beginning, chief (for רְאֵשִׁית NöGGA 1884, 1019, cf. HolzHex 465; Syriac ܪܺܝܫܺܝܬܳܐ );—abs. ר׳ Dt 33:21 +, cstr. ר׳ Gn 10:10 +, רֵשִׁית Dt 11:12; sf. רֵאשִׁיתוֹ Ec 7:8, רֵאשִׁתוֹ Jb 42:12, etc.;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from ראש (rôʼsh) (H7218) — head.
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.
רֵאשִׁית
- 1. beginning; firstling, first gift.—בר׳, v. בְּרֵאשִׁית.—Ḥull. XI, 1, a. e., v. גֵּז. Ib. 136ᵇ ר׳ ששיריה ניכרין a first gift the remainder of which is distinguishable (not the entire mass); ib. כל גזיי ר׳ all my shorn wool be dedicated as priest’s gift; a. e.
- 2. magistracy, office. Y. R. Hash. I, 57ᵇ bot. והעכירו מרֵאשִׁיתוֹ he removed him (the chief magistrate of Gadara) from his office; (Bab. ib. 22ᵃ מגדולתו).
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 31 distinct written forms H7225 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 H7225, 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
- מראשה marʼâshâh H4761 dominion
- ראש rêʼsh H7217 chief
- ראש rôʼsh H7219 gall
- ראשה riʼshâh H7221 early time
- ראשה rôʼshâh H7222 top
- ראשת raʼăshôth H7226 head place
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 9 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 42 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 49 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
- Genesis 1:1
- Exodus 23:19
- Leviticus 2:12
- Numbers 15:20
- Deuteronomy 11:12
- 1 Samuel 2:29
- 2 Chronicles 31:5
- Job 8:7
- Psalms 105:36
- Proverbs 1:7
- Ecclesiastes 7:8
- Isaiah 46:10
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.
