רֵעַ
friend
also: companion, fellow, another person fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Construct-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H7453 appears in the Book of Job — 14 distinct verses. 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.
Job
- Job 2:11 רֵעֵ֣י n c mp cs Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.
- Job 6:14 מֵרֵעֵ֣/הוּ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms "To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown from his friend; Even to him who forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
- Job 6:27 רֵֽיעֲ/כֶֽם n c ms cs + sfx pers 2mp Yes, you would even cast lots for the fatherless, And make merchandise of your friend.
- Job 12:4 לְ/רֵעֵ֨/הוּ prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.
- Job 16:20 רֵעָ֑/י n c mp cs + sfx pers 1cs My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,
- Job 16:21 לְ/רֵעֵֽ/הוּ prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms That he would maintain the right of a man with God, Of a son of man with his neighbor!
- Job 17:5 רֵעִ֑ים n c mp He who denounces his friends for a prey, Even the eyes of his children shall fail.
- Job 19:21 רֵעָ֑/י n c mp cs + sfx pers 1cs "Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; For the hand of God has touched me.
- Job 30:29 וְ֝/רֵ֗עַ conj + n c ms I am a brother to jackals, And a companion to ostriches.
- Job 31:9 רֵעִ֣/י n c ms cs + sfx pers 1cs "If my heart has been enticed to a woman, And I have laid wait at my neighbor's door;
- Job 32:3 רֵעָי/ו֮ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms Also his wrath was kindled against his three friends, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job.
- Job 35:4 רֵעֶ֥י/ךָ n c mp cs + sfx pers 2ms I will answer you, And your companions with you.
- Job 42:7 רֵעֶ֔י/ךָ n c mp cs + sfx pers 2ms It was so, that after Yahweh had spoken these words to Job, Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.
- Job 42:10 רֵעֵ֑/הוּ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms Yahweh turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends. Yahweh gave Job twice as much as he had before.
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
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.
- #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 →
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 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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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
- מרע mêrêaʻ H4828 friend
- מרעה mirʻeh H4829 pasture
- מרעית mirʻîyth H4830 pasturage
- רע rêaʻ H7454 thought
- רעה rêʻeh H7463 friend
- רעות rᵉʻûwth H7468 companion
- רעות rᵉʻûwth H7469 longing
- רעי rᵉʻîy H7471 pasture
- רעי rôʻîy H7473 shepherd
- רעיון raʻyôwn H7475 longing
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
- Genesis 11:3
- Exodus 2:13
- Leviticus 19:13
- Deuteronomy 4:42
- Joshua 20:5
- Judges 6:29
- Ruth 3:14
- 1 Samuel 10:11
- 2 Samuel 2:16
- 1 Kings 8:31
- 2 Kings 3:23
- 1 Chronicles 27:33
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.
