רֶ֫בַע
fourth part
‘fourth part’ is one of 3 main senses 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.
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
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).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 5 times (63%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 2 times (25%)
- Adjective, Ordinal number, Feminine, Singular, Construct 1 time (13%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 8 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H7253 appears — 7 distinct verses across 3 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
1 Samuel 1 verse
Ezekiel 5 verses
- Ezekiel 1:8 רִבְעֵי/הֶ֑ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp They had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings [thus]:
- Ezekiel 1:17 רִבְעֵי/הֶ֖ן n c mp cs + sfx pers 3fp When they went, they went in their four directions: they didn't turn when they went.
- Ezekiel 10:11 רִבְעֵי/הֶם֙ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp When they went, they went in their four directions: they didn't turn as they went, but to the place where the head looked they followed it; they didn't turn as they went.
- Ezekiel 43:16 רְבָעָֽי/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms The altar hearth shall be twelve [cubits] long by twelve broad, square in the four sides of it.
- Ezekiel 43:17 רְבָעֶ֑י/הָ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3fs The ledge shall be fourteen [cubits] long by fourteen broad in the four sides of it; and the border about it shall be half a cubit; and the bottom of it shall be a cubit round about; and the steps of it shall look toward the east.
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 רבע centers on the idea of “fourth part.” The word gravitates to Ezekiel (71%), then Exodus and 1 Samuel. It appears 7 verses across 3 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. Its earliest occurrence is Exodus 29:40. Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. Dig into 7-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7253 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 →
- 7
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 7 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 7 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 7 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 6 verses · 86%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 14%
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†: Sides 3×, Fourth part 2×, Squares 2×
- American Standard Version†: Directions 2×, Fourth part 2×, Sides 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Directions 2×, Quarter 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Fourth part of 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7253 across 7† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7253 across 7† 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7253 across 6† 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7253 across 9† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 2 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.
רבע I
- 1. ר׳ cstr., fourth part, of shekel 1 S 9:8, of hin Ex 29:40. e.g. 1 Samuel 9:8
- 2. in Ez, pl. sf. four sides (אַרְבַּעַת always preceding): רְבָעָיו Ez 43:16, רְבָעֶיהָ v 17; רִבְעֵיהֶם 1:8; 10:11, -הֶן 1:17. e.g. Ezekiel 43:16
רבע II a king of Midian Nu 31
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. n.m. Ez 1:8 1. fourth part. 2. pl. four sides;—
II. n.m. a king of Midian Nu 31:8; Jos 13:21; Ροβοκ, Ροβε(κ).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from רבע (râbaʻ) (H7251) — to square.
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.
רָבַע
- (b. h.) to lie with, copulate with, cover. Y. Ab. Zar. I, 40ᵃ top והלא מביא … והוא רוֹבְעָהּ וכ׳ but may he not bring (the crippled sire) to her, and he cover her, and she may give birth? Ib. והיא רוֹבַעַת ממנו וכ׳ and she (the crippled mare) may be fecundated by him.—Esp. a) (with ref. to Lev. XX, 16) to have connection with a beast. Snh. I, 4 הרוֹבֵעַ והנִרְבָּע the animal that covered (a woman), and the animal that was covered (by a man). B. Kam. 40ᵇ; a. e.—b) to commit pederasty. Snh. 9ᵇ פלוני רְבָעוֹ לאונסו וכ׳ (if a man says) such and such a man committed sodomy with him (euphem. for me) against his will, he himself in connection with another witness can testify &c.—Trnsf. to fructify the ground. Taan. 6ᵇ דבר שרובע, v. רְבִיעָה. e.g. Leviticus 20:16
- to be covered, esp. to be copulated in an unnatural way. Snh. I, 4, v. supra. Ab. Zar. 24ᵃ וולד הנִרְבַּעַת אסורה the issue of a beast that was used for buggery while pregnant is disqualified for the altar; היא וולדה נִירְבְּעוּ for mother and child have been abused; a. fr.
- 1. (v. (v. רְבִיעָה) to inundate for the sake of improving the soil. Y. Peah VII, 20ᵇ (ref. to המרבץ, ib. V, 19ᵃ top) מביון שהוא מְרַבְּעָהּ וכ׳ because he inundates it, it will yield so much more next year.
- 2. (denom. of אַרְבַּע) a) to do for the fourth time. Sifré Deut. 306 הוי מפטם … ומְרַבֵּע perfume (thyself) with the words of the Law, and do it a second, a third, and a fourth time; Yalk. ib. 942.—b) to quadrate, make quadrilateral. Part. pass. מְרוּבָּע; f. מְרוּבַּעַת; pl. מְרוּבָּעִים, מְרוּבָּעִין; מְרוּבָּעוֹת. Y. Maasr. V, end, 52ᵃ אין מר׳ מששת ימי בראשית there is no quadrangular form in natural objects; ib. והתנינן … הקילקי המ׳ but do we not read in the Mishnah (Neg. VI, 1) … ‘of the size of a Cilician bean which is quadrilateral’? כל גרמא … (ד)יְרַבְּעֶנָּהּ הוא this very passage proves that there is nothing quadrangular in nature; and why does the Mishnah say so? It means that he (the priest) should calculate the size of a bean by circumscribing a quadrilateral around it; Y. Ned. III, 37ᵈ bot.; Y. Shebu. III, 34ᵈ די ירבעונה הוא (read: יְרַבְּעֶינָּהּ). Tosef. Maasr. III, 14, v. גָּרִיס. Y. Erub. II, 20ᵃ מר׳ a quadrilateral stone, opp. עגולה; Bab. Erub. 19ᵇ; Tosef. ib. II (I), 1. Ib. VI (V), 10 ריבע את העיר וכ׳ if he squares a town (which is built in a curve) and makes the calculation as if it were a square table (plane); Erub. 56ᵇ המְרַבֵּעַ וכ׳. Ib. וחוזר ומרבע את התחומין and then again he draws a square for the Sabbath limits. Ib. כמה מר׳ יתר וכ׳ how much larger is the square than the inscribed circle?; a. fr.
רְבַע
- 1. to lie, couch. Targ. Num. XXII, 27 (h. text רבץ). Targ. Y. Gen. XLIX, 25; a. fr.—Part. רְבִיעַ; f. רְבִיעָא; pl. רְבִיעִין; רְבִיעָן. Ib. IV, 7. Targ. Deut. XXII, 6 (O. ed. Vien. רְבֵעָא). Targ. Ps. CIV, 22; a. fr.—Y. Ber. VIII, 12ᵇ top לא מיסתך דאת ר׳ וכ׳ is it not not enough that thou art lying (on the dining couch), and he stands and attends thee? Ib. גזירנא דהוא ר׳ וכ׳ (not גזירה) I decree that he lie down, and thou stand &c. Gen. R. s. 7 רביע ואנא וכ׳ lie down (to be lashed), and I will tell thee; Tanḥ. Ḥuck. 6; Pesik. R. s. 14. Koh. R. to I, 8 קם ור׳ ליה על רגלוי he arose and threw himself down at his feet. Shebu. 22ᵇ, a. fr. אריא הוא דר׳ וכ׳, v. אַרְיָא; a. fr.
- 2. to commit buggery. Ab. Zar. 24ᵃ דילמא רַבְעוּהָ לאימא דאימא perhaps they (gentiles) had connection with the grandmother (of the animal, while she was pregnant); a. e.
- 1. to cause to lie down, lay down. Targ. Y. Gen. XXIV, 11 (h. text ויברך). Targ. Y. Deut. XXV, 2 ויַרְבְּעִינֵיה (not ויִרְ׳).—Part. pass. מַרְבַּע. Targ. Y. I Gen. XLIX, 14.—Num. R. s. 19 אַרְבְּעוּנֵיה דילקי lay him down, that he may receive lashes; Tanḥ. l. c. ארבעתיה (corr. acc.); ib. ארבעונהי (corr. acc.). Pesik. R. l. c. אַרְבְּעִינֵיה lay thou him down. Y. Bicc. I, 64ᵃ אַרְבְּעֵיה על וכ׳ he ordered him to be laid on the benches (for punishment). B. Kam. 114ᵃ אַרְבְּעֵית לי אריא וכ׳ thou didst put a lion at my borders, i.e. you forced a violent neighbor upon me; a. e.—Y. Yeb. IV, 6ᵃ bot. ואנא בעי מַרְבַּעְתָּהּ וכ׳ and I want to assist at her lying down (for delivery), before she cools off, v. צְנַן.
- 2. to copulate animals, esp. to hybridize. Targ. Y. Gen. XXXVI, 24. Targ. Y. Lev. XIX, 19.
- 1. to divide into four parts. Targ. Y. Deut. XXXII, 4.
- 2. to make quadrangular. Part. pass. מְרַבַּע (מְרֻבַּע Hebraism); f. מְרַבְּעָא; pl. מְּרַבְּעִין; מְרַבְּעָן, מְרַבְּעָתָא quadrate. Targ. Ex. XXVII, 1. Targ. Ez. XLV, 2. Targ. I Kings VII, 5. Targ. Y. I Num. XXXIII, 7 (not מֵרַבְ׳); Targ. Y. I Ex. XIV, 2 (ed. Vien. מרביעתא, corr. acc.); a. e.—Y. Sot. V, 20ᵇ bot. מאן דמְרַבַּע ארבע וכ׳ he that wants to form four rows of four casks each requires sixteen casks. Erub. 57ᵃ אימור … כמאן דמְרַבְּעָא רַבּוּעֵי ודאי מי מְרַבַּעְנָא we said, we consider it in our calculations as if it were squared; do we, however, really make it a square (by filling the space with buildings)?; a. e.
רֶבַע
- preced.) one-fourth, quarter.—Pl. רְבָעִים. Erub. 56ᵃ בארבעה רִבְעֵי היום וכ׳ at one of the four quarters of the day, at the beginning of the day, or at the beginning of the night, or at noon, or at midnight.—Esp. one-fourth of a Ḳab. Pl. as ab. Ḥall. II, 6 חמשת ר׳ קמח five quarts of flour (v. Maim. a. l.). Ib. I, 4; a. fr.—Du. רִבְעָתַיִם, רִיבְ׳. Ker. I, 7 בר׳ at the price of two quarters (of a silver Denar); B. Bath. 166ᵇ (Rashb: at one quarter of a Denar for a pair of birds, v. Tosaf. a. l.); Ker. 10ᵇ
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 H7253 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| רְבִעִ֥ית | Adjective, Ordinal number, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 29:40 | 1 |
| רְבָעֶ֑י/הָ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 43:17 | 1 |
| רְבָעָֽי/ו | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 43:16 | 1 |
| רִבְעֵי/הֶ֑ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 1:8 | 1 |
| רִבְעֵי/הֶ֖ן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 1:17 | 1 |
| רִבְעֵי/הֶם֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Ezekiel 10:11 | 1 |
| רֶ֖בַע | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | 1 Samuel 9:8 | 1 |
| רֶ֣בַע | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 29:40 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7253, 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
- ארבע ʼarbaʻ H702 four
- רביעי rᵉbîyʻîy H7243 fourth
- רבע rôbaʻ H7255 fourth part
- רבע ribbêaʻ H7256 fourth
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. 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 7 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 7 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.
