רָעָב
famine
‘famine’ 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.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H7458 appears in the Book of Job — 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.
Job
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.
רעב (râʻâb) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “famine.” It first appears in Genesis 12:10. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 88 verses — moderately common. Jeremiah dominates its distribution — 30 of 88 verses. Not a single-sense word: explore 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 H7458 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 →
- 88
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 88 distinct verses.
- 17 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 17 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #421
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 421 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 88 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 88 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 55 verses · 63%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 20 verses · 23%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 13 verses · 15%
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: Famine 76×, Hunger 7×, Was a famine 4×
- American Standard Version: Famine 74×, Hunger 5×, Was a famine 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Famine 81×, Hunger 5×, Or famine 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Famine 73×, Hunger 7×, Now the famine 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7458 across 101 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7458 across 101 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 18 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 H7458 across 100 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7458 across 89 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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.
- 1. famine (in land, nation or city), Gn 12:10; 26:1; 41:30, 31 Ex 16:3 2 S 21:1; 24:13 = 2 K 4:38; 6:25 +; שְׁנֵי(הָ)ר׳ Gn 41:27, 30, 36, שְׁנַת ר׳ v 50, but also שָׁנִים ר׳ [שָׁלוֹשׁ] שֶׁבַע 2 S 24:13 (on gender v. AlbrZAW xvi (1896), 103) = 1 Ch 21:12; c. חזק (be) severe Gn 41:56, 57 1 K 18:2; 2 K 25:3 = Je 52:6, חזק עַל Gn 47:20; c. כָבֵד 12:10; 47:4, 13; גָּדוֹל 2 K 6:25; זַעלעֲפוֹת ר׳ La 5:10; מְזֵי ר׳ Dt 32:24 + Is 5:13 (v. [מָזֶה]), תַּחֲלוּאֵי ר׳ Je 14:18, חַלֲלֵי ר׳ La 5:9, אֲסֻפֵי ר׳ Ez 34:29; חִצֵּי הָר׳ 5:16; as scourge of י׳ (+ חֶרֶב, דֶּבֶ, etc.; especially Je Ez), Je 5:12; 11:22; 14:12; 21:7, 9 Ez 5:2; 6:11, 12 +, etc.; fig. of lack of י׳’s word Am 8:11. e.g. Genesis 12:10
- 2. hunger, of individual Je 38:9 Dt 28:48 (+ צָסָא, etc.), 2 Ch 32:11 (+ id.). e.g. Jeremiah 38:9
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.m. Gn 26:1 famine, hunger;—abs. ר׳ Gn 12:10 +; sf. רְעָבָם Ne 9:15;
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from רעב (râʻêb) (H7456) — to be hungry.
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.
רָעֵב I
- (b. h.) hungry. Gitt. 56ᵃ כל … כשהוא ר׳ וכ׳ whoever entered his house hungry like a dog came out satisfied. Lev. R. s. 34 (ref. to Is. LVIII, 10) אם זכיתם לרְעֵבוֹ של יעקב וכ׳ if you do good, you will give to the hungry one of Jacob, if not, to the satisfied one of Esau (to the Roman oppressor); a. fr., v. next w.—Pl. רְעֵבִים. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXVIII, 19 מאכיל ר׳ הייתי I have been a feeder of the hungry; זה השער של מאכיל ר׳ this is the gate for him who fed the hungry. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXLVI, 7 ומי הם הר׳ זה וכ׳ and who are the hungry (to whom the Lord gives bread)? Such as Elijah who was hungry &c.; a. e. e.g. Isaiah 58:10
רָעֵב II
- (b. h.) to be hungry. Succ. 52ᵇ אבר … מַרְעִיבוֹ שבע משביעו ר׳ a small organ is in man, when you starve it, it is satisfied, when you satisfy it, it is hungry; Snh. 107ᵃ. Mekh. B’shall., s. 4 ר׳ האכילו when the child was hungry, he gave him food; (Yalk. Ex. 233 נִרְעָב); a. e.
- 1. same. Mekh. l. c. ה׳ האכילו when Israel was hungry, he (the Lord) gave him food.
- 2. to starve, subject to privation. Succ. l. c. Snh. 65ᵇ (ref. to Deut. XVIII, 11 דורש אל המתים) זה המַרְעִיב עצמו וכ׳ that is he who fasts and spends the night in the cemetery in order that the spirit of impurity (unholy inspiration) may rest upon him. Ib. 100ᵃ כל המרעיב עצמו וכ׳ him who undergoes privations for the sake of studying the words of the Law in this world, the Lord will satisfy &c. Y. Keth. V, 30ᵇ האבר הזה הִרְעִיבָתוֹ השביעתו … הרעיבתו that certain organ, if she starves it, she makes it satisfied, the more she satisfies it, the more she makes it hungry, v. supra. Taan. 11ᵃ; a. e. e.g. Deuteronomy 18:11
- to be famished, v. supra.
רעב
- , Targ. Y. Num. XX, 11 וארעב ed. Vien., v. רְעַם II
רָעָב
- preced. art.) hunger, famine. Ber. 55ᵃ שלשה … ר׳ ושובע וכ׳ three things does the Lord himself announce; famine, plenty, and a good governor. B. Bath. 8ᵇ ר׳ קשה מחרב famine is a severer affliction than war. Ab. V, 8, v. בַּצּוֹרֶת; a. fr.
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 54 distinct written forms H7458 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 H7458, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 80 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 88 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 12:10
- Exodus 16:3
- Deuteronomy 28:48
- Ruth 1:1
- 2 Samuel 21:1
- 1 Kings 8:37
- 2 Kings 4:38
- 1 Chronicles 21:12
- 2 Chronicles 6:28
- Job 5:20
- Psalms 33:19
- Isaiah 5:13
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.
