רוּשׁ
to be poor
also: be in want, lack fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
- 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.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
- Hithpolel
- The reflexive counterpart of the Polel.
Form
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 19 times (79%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (8%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (4%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 time (4%)
- Verb, Hithpolel, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (4%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 24 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H7326 appears — 24 distinct verses across 5 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.
1 Samuel 1 verse
2 Samuel 3 verses
- 2 Samuel 12:1 רָֽאשׁ Qal ptcp.act ms Yahweh sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, "There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.
- 2 Samuel 12:3 וְ/לָ/רָ֣שׁ conj + prep det + Qal ptcp.act ms but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him, and with his children. It ate of his own food, drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was to him like a daughter.
- 2 Samuel 12:4 הָ/רָ֔אשׁ ptcl def.art + Qal ptcp.act ms A traveler came to the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man who had come to him, but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man who had come to him."
Psalms 2 verses
Proverbs 16 verses
- Proverbs 10:4 רָ֗אשׁ n c ms He becomes poor who works with a lazy hand, But the hand of the diligent brings wealth.
- Proverbs 13:7 מִ֝תְרוֹשֵׁ֗שׁ Hithpolel ptcp.act ms There are some who pretend to be rich, yet have nothing. There are some who pretend to be poor, yet have great wealth.
- Proverbs 13:8 וְ֝/רָ֗שׁ conj + Qal ptcp.act ms The ransom of a man's life is his riches, But the poor hear no threats.
- Proverbs 13:23 רָאשִׁ֑ים Qal ptcp.act mp An abundance of food is in poor people's fields, But injustice sweeps it away.
- Proverbs 14:20 רָ֑שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms The poor person is shunned even by his own neighbor, But the rich person has many friends.
- Proverbs 17:5 לָ֭/רָשׁ prep det + Qal ptcp.act ms Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker. He who is glad at calamity shall not be unpunished.
- Proverbs 18:23 רָ֑שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms The poor plead for mercy, But the rich answer harshly.
- Proverbs 19:1 רָ֭שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms Better is the poor who walks in his integrity Than he who is perverse in his lips and is a fool.
- Proverbs 19:7 רָ֨שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms All the relatives of the poor shun him: How much more do his friends avoid him! He pursues them with pleas, but they are gone.
- Proverbs 19:22 רָ֝שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms That which makes a man to be desired is his kindness. A poor man is better than a liar.
- Proverbs 22:2 וָ/רָ֣שׁ conj + Qal ptcp.act ms The rich and the poor have this in common: Yahweh is the maker of them all.
- Proverbs 22:7 בְּ/רָשִׁ֣ים prep + Qal ptcp.act mp The rich rule over the poor. The borrower is servant to the lender.
- Proverbs 28:3 רָ֭שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms A needy man who oppresses the poor Is like a driving rain which leaves no crops.
- Proverbs 28:6 רָ֭שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms Better is the poor who walks in his integrity, Than he who is perverse in his ways, and he is rich.
- Proverbs 28:27 לָ֭/רָשׁ prep det + Qal ptcp.act ms One who gives to the poor has no lack; But one who closes his eyes will have many curses.
- Proverbs 29:13 רָ֤שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms The poor man and the oppressor have this in common: Yahweh gives sight to the eyes of both.
Ecclesiastes 2 verses
- Ecclesiastes 4:14 רָֽשׁ Qal ptcp.act ms For out of prison he came forth to be king; yes, even in his kingdom he was born poor.
- Ecclesiastes 5:8 רָ֠שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don't marvel at the matter: for one official is eyed by a higher one; and there are officials over them.
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.
At its core, רוש (rûwsh) means “to be poor.” The word gravitates to Proverbs (67%), then 2 Samuel and Psalms. It turns up in 24 verses across 5 books, an uncommon footprint. Beyond its headline sense, its full sense range takes in “be in want” and “lack”. Its English rendering has broadened — “poor” classically, “one who is poor” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7326 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 →
- 24
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 24 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,327
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,327 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 24 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 24 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 20 verses · 83%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 17%
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: Poor 13×, Is the poor 2×
- American Standard Version: Poor 12×, Is the poor 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Poor 11×, Poor man 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: One who is poor 6×, Poor 6×, Poor one 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7326 across 23 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 H7326 across 23 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7326 across 24 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 H7326 across 25 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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
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 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.
Qal
- 3,
Niph. Hiph
- 3
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. be in want, poor (related to ירשׁ [cf.
— 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
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.
רוֹשׁ
- (b. h.) a poisonous plant, poison. Esth. R. to I, 1 (play on אחשורוש) שהשקה אותם ר׳ ולענה he gave them poison and wormwood to drink; a. e.
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 19 distinct written forms H7326 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7326, 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 21 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 24 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.
