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רֵעַ

friend

also: companion, fellow, another person fuller range ↓

H7453 Strong's Hebrew
rêaʻ Transliteration
/ray'-ah/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 189 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.

At its core, רע (rêaʻ) means “friend.” Older and newer Bibles part ways — “neighbour” in the King James Version, “neighbor” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. It appears 173 verses across 29 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. Scripture first uses it in Genesis 11:3. Ranging over 4 senses, its meaning includes “companion”, “fellow”, and “another person”. Dig into 173-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
brother
Modern gloss
friend
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H7453 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 →

173
distinct verses
The word appears in 173 distinct verses.
29 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 29 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 11:3
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 11:3.
Malachi 3:16
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Malachi 3:16.
#248
by frequency
Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 248 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 173 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 45 · 26%
  • Historical 29 · 17%
  • Wisdom 55 · 32%
  • Prophets 44 · 25%

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 173 distinct verses.

  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 65 verses · 38%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 63 verses · 36%
  • Torah (Pentateuch) 45 verses · 26%

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 3 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: Neighbour 55×, Neighbour's 22×, Another 21×
  • American Standard Version: Neighbor 80×, Another 20×, Friend 12×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Neighbor 49×, Another 26×, Friend 22×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Neighbor 87×, Friend 22×, Fellow 10×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H7453 across 187 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Neighbour” 55×
  • “Neighbour's” 22×
  • “Another” 21×
  • “Friend” 15×
  • “Friends” 11×
  • “Against his neighbour” 7×
  • “Fellow” 5×
  • “Against thy neighbour” 4×
  • “Companion” 3×
  • “Another's” 2×
  • “Neighbours” 2×
  • “Other” 2×

Plus 38 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 H7453 across 187 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Neighbor” 80×
  • “Another” 20×
  • “Friend” 12×
  • “Friends” 10×
  • “Fellow” 8×
  • “Against his neighbor” 7×
  • “Against thy neighbor” 4×
  • “Neighbors” 3×
  • “Other” 3×
  • “'s friend” 2×
  • “Companion” 2×
  • “Man” 2×

Plus 34 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 H7453 across 185 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Neighbor” 49×
  • “Another” 26×
  • “Friend” 22×
  • “Neighbor’s” 22×
  • “Friends” 16×
  • “Other” 6×
  • “Against his neighbor” 5×
  • “Against your neighbor” 4×
  • “Neighbors” 4×
  • “Companion” 3×
  • “Against neighbor” 2×
  • “Another’s” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 20 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 2 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H7453 across 188 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Neighbor” 87×
  • “Friend” 22×
  • “Fellow” 10×
  • “Friends” 9×
  • “Companion” 7×
  • “Companions” 7×
  • “Against his neighbor” 5×
  • “Neighbor s” 4×
  • “Against your neighbor” 3×
  • “Neighbors” 3×
  • “Another” 2×
  • “Comrade” 2×

Plus 27 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 0 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.

רע I verb. shouting, roar, but dub.

רע II [m.] purpose, aim

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.verb. shouting, roar, but dub.;—קוֹל הָעָם בְּרֵעֹה֯ Ex 32:17 (E) sound of the people as they shouted (read Inf. cstr. בָּרִעֹה for בְּהָרִיעוֹ cf. √ 5); יַגִּיד עָלָיו רֵע֑וֹ Jb 36:33 the roar thereof telleth of him (רַעְמוֹ his thunder, so Bu); לָמָּה תָרִיעִי רֵעַ Mi 4:9 why criest thou out with a crying? (butv. √ 6). ii, iii. רֵעַ v. ii, iii. רעה; רַע, רֹעַ v. דעע.

II. v. II, III. רעה.

IV. n. [m.] purpose, aim;—sf. רֵעִי ψ 139:2 (of man), pl. sf. רֵעֶיךָ v 17 (of E†l).

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

Derived from רעה (râʻâh) (H7462) — to shepherd.

Part of speech: Noun Masculine TWOT: 2186a


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.

רַע I

  • [shaken,] weak, sick; bad; (noun) evil. Ber. 7ᵃ מפני מה … ורע לו why is there a righteous man who fares well, and another righteous man who fares badly? Ib. 23ᵃ (ref. to Koh. IV, 17) בין טוב לרע וכ׳ they cannot distinguish between good and evil, and want to offer a sacrifice before me? Kidd. 40ᵃ (ref. to Is. III, 11) וכי יש רשע רע ויש שאינו רע is there a bad wicked man and a wicked man that is not bad?; רע לשמים ורע לבריות וכ׳ one bad in his relation to heaven (irreligious) and bad to men is a bad wicked man &c. Ohol. XVIII, 6 שכחן רע whose strength is feeble, v. כֹּחַ. Ab. II, 9 חבר רע a bad companion; לב רע a bad heart; a. v. fr.—Fem. רָעָה bad; (noun) evil. Ib., a. fr. עין ר׳, v. עַיִן. Sabb. 11ᵃ כל ד׳ ולא אשה ר׳ any evil, only not a bad wife. Ber. 61ᵃ אחת … ואחת יועצתו לר׳ one (kidney) counsels for good, the other for evil. Y. Shek. I, beg. 45ᵈ לטובה … לר׳ וכ׳ for a good purpose—‘every liberal-hearted’ (Ex. XXXV, 22), for a bad purpose—‘the whole people’ (ib. XXXII, 3). Hor. 10ᵇ אפי׳ טובתם … ר׳ היא וכ׳ even the good which wicked men do is an evil with the righteous (they do not enjoy it); Yeb. 103ᵃ sq. Koh. R. to V, 12, v. חוֹלָה I. Ber. l. c. (ref. to Koh. IV, 17) אל תהי … אם על ר׳ הם מביאים be not like the fools who sin and offer a sacrifice, not knowing whether they offer it for the good they have done or for the evil; a. v. fr.—Pl. רָעִים; רָעוֹת. Keth. 110ᵇ (quot. fr. Ben Sira) כל ימי עני ר׳ all the days of a poor man are bad; Snh. 101ᵃ. Y. Ber. V, 8ᵈ bot., v. חָצַף. Ex. R. s. 42 (ref. to Jer. II, 13) ושתי ר׳ עשו לבד have they committed no more than two evils?; a. v. fr. e.g. Ecclesiastes 4:17

רַע II

  • to be evil, v. רָעַע.

רַע III

  • ch. = אֲרַע, v. לרַע

רֵעַ

  • , v. רֵיעַ

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 88 distinct written forms H7453 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
רֵעֵ֑/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 22:24 17
רֵעֵ֖/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 19:5 13
רֵעֵ֔/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Exodus 21:18 11
רֵעֵ֗/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Exodus 11:2 9
רֵעֵֽ/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Exodus 22:8 9
רֵעֵ֨/הוּ֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 4:42 8
רֵעֶ֑/ךָ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 5:21 8
לְ/רֵעֵ֑/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Jeremiah 23:27 5
לְ/רֵעֵ֔/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 19:11 4
רֵעֵ֜/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Exodus 22:7 4
רֵעֶֽ/ךָ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 23:25 4
בְּ/רֵעֵ֑/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 15:2 3
לְ/רֵעֵֽ/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Esther 9:19 3
רֵעֵ֥/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 19:5 3
בְּ/רֵעֵ֖/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 2 Chronicles 20:23 2
בְּ/רֵעֵ֨/הוּ֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Jeremiah 9:5 2
לְ/רֵעֲ/ךָ֖ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 15:28 2
לְ/רֵעֵ֖/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Exodus 18:7 2
לְ/רֵעֵ֣/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 30:26 2
לְ/רֵעֵ֥/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 11:12 2
לְ/רֵעֶֽ/ךָ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 5:21 2
רֵ֖עַ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Hosea 3:1 2
רֵ֝עֵ֗/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 18:17 2
רֵעִ֣ים Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute Jeremiah 3:1 2
רֵעֵ֣/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Genesis 38:20 2
רֵעֶ֔/ךָ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 23:24 2
רֵעֶ֗/ךָ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 5:21 2
רֵעָ֑/י Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct Job 16:20 2
בְ/רֵ֔עַ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Micah 7:5 1
בְ/רֵֽעֲ/ךָ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 24:10 1
בְ/רֵֽעֲ/ךָ֖ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Deuteronomy 5:20 1
בְ/רֵעֲ/ךָ֖ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Exodus 20:16 1
בְ֝/רֵעֵ֗/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 25:18 1
בְּ/רֵעֵ֔/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 14:20 1
בְּ/רֵעֵֽ/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Zechariah 8:10 1
בְּ/רֵעֶ֑/ךָ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 24:28 1
הָ/רֵ֑עַ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Proverbs 17:17 1
הָ֝/רֵ֗עַ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Proverbs 19:6 1
וְ/רֵ֪עַ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 27:10 1
וְ/רֵע֖/וֹ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Jeremiah 6:21 1
וְ/רֵעֵֽ/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 Kings 16:11 1
וְ/רֵעֶ֨י/ךָ֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct Zechariah 3:8 1
וְ/רֵעַ֗/י Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct Psalms 38:11 1
וְ/רֵעָ֑/י Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct Psalms 122:8 1
וְ֝/רֵ֗עַ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Job 30:29 1
וָ/רֵ֑עַ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Psalms 88:18 1
כְּ/רֵֽעַ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Psalms 35:14 1
ל/רעי/ך Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct Proverbs 3:28 1
לְ/רֵֽעֲ/ךָ֨ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 3:28 1
לְ/רֵעֲ/ךָ֥ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 28:17 1
לְ/רֵעֵ֨/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Job 12:4 1
לְ/רֵעֶ֑/ךָ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 6:1 1
לְ/רֵעֶ֑י/ךָ Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 2 Samuel 12:11 1
לְ֭/רֵעֵ/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 14:20 1
מֵ/רֵעֵ֑/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Ecclesiastes 4:4 1
מֵ/רֵעֵ֣/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 12:26 1
מֵ/רֵעֵ֨/הוּ֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Jeremiah 9:4 1
מֵ/רֵעֵֽ/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Genesis 31:49 1
מֵ/רֵעָ֑/הּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Jeremiah 3:20 1
מֵרֵ֥ע/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Proverbs 19:4 1

The 60 most common forms are shown; 28 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.


Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7453, 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

Derived from this word

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 15 — 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 165 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 173 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.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

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

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