רֵעִי
Rei
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Rei’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H7472 appears — 1 distinct verse across 1 book. 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 Kings 1 verse
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.
רעי (Rêʻîy) is a Hebrew name most often rendered “Rei.” A scarce word — 1 verse in all of the Hebrew Bible. 1 Kings dominates its distribution — 1 of 1 verses. Its lone occurrence is 1 Kings 1:8. For the data behind this summary, explore 1-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7472 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 →
- 1
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 1 distinct verse.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #6,101
- by frequency
- Rank #6,101 (rank 6,101 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 1 occurrence in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Kings 1 verse 100%
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 1 distinct verse.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 100%
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: Rei 1×
- American Standard Version: Rei 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Rei 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Rei 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7472 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7472 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7472 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7472 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- Rei = "friendly"
- a person of David's court who remained loyal during Adonijah's rebellion
Word origin
רֵעִי n.pr.m. courtier of David 1 K 1:8
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from רע (rêaʻ) (H7453) — friend.
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.
רעי
- (b. h.) [to join, arrange, cmp. דבר,] to lead, pasture, feed; (neut. verb) to graze. Ex. R. s. 2 כשהיה משה … רוֹעֶה צאנו וכ׳ when Moses … was feeding Jethro’s flock in the desert &c.; חייך אתה תִרְעֶה וכ׳ as thou livest, thou shalt lead my flock, Israel. Ib. והיה מוציא הקטנים לִרְעוֹת כדי שיִרְעוּ וכ׳ he (David) took out the young first that they might eat the tender grass &c. Yoma VI, 1 יִרְעֶה עד שיסתאב, v. סָאַב; Bekh. II, 9 ירעו עד וכ׳; a. fr.
- to lead to pasture, feed. Erub. 17ᵃ; B. Kam. 81ᵃ top שיהו מַרְעִין וכ׳, v. חוֹרֶשׁ; a. e.
- (v. Jud. XIV, 20) to associate, make a friend, companion. Cant. R. to II, 9 (ref. to רעיתי, ib. 10) בתו של יצחק שריעה אותי וייפה אותי וכ׳ the daughter of Isaac who declared me (the Lord) his friend and beautified me (the faith in God) on the altar. Lam. R. introd. (R. Josh. 1) שתָּרֵיעַ לקבל וכ׳ (some ed. שתָּרֵיעוּ; from רעע, v. רֵיעַ) that thou (you) form a partnership &c., v. שָׂרַע. e.g. Judges 14:20
רְעֵי
- , to feed; to graze. Targ. Gen. XXX, 31; 36. Targ. Ex. XXXIV, 3; a. fr.—Ber. 56ᵃ ורַעֲיֵי וכ׳, v. שָׁקְצָא.
רְעֵי ²
- (preced.; cmp. צְבֵי) = h. רָצָה, [to join in,] to desire, take delight in; to welcome (cmp. חָפֵץ &c.). Targ. Ps. XL, 7 Ms. (ed. צבי). Ib. LXXXV, 2. Targ. I Sam. XX, 30 (h. text בחר). Targ. Y. Lev. XXVI, 34 (O. Af.). Targ. Ez. XVIII, 23; a. fr.—Yalk. Koh. 972 מאן דרחמנא רָעֵי ליה whom the Lord favors. Y. Snh. I, 19ᵃ לא רָעֵינָא ביה I do not like him; Y. M. Kat. III, 82ᵃ bot. רעיינא (corr. acc.); a. e.
- 1. to favor, welcome. Targ. O. Lev. l. c.—Part. pass. מַרְעֵי. Targ. Y. Deut. XXXIII, 24 (h. text רצוי).—[Targ. Y. II, Ex. XV, 9 אַרְעֵי, v. אֲרַע I.]
- 2. to reconcile. Num. R. s. 920 ומַרְעֲיִין ליה לאינתיה and (we should) have made him live with his wife.
- 1. to be pleasing, acceptable; to delight in, choose. Targ. Lev. I, 4. Targ. Koh. IX, 7. Targ. Gen. XXXIV, 3 (h. text דבק). Targ. Job XXXIV, 4 נִתְרְעֵי לנא (h. text נבחרה); a. fr.—[Targ. Y. Lev. XXIII, 14 יתרעון, read: תארעין, v. אֲרַע II.]
- 2. to be reconciled. Targ. Ps. LXXVII, 8.
- 3. to offer one’s self willingly, volunteer. Targ. Is. LXIV, 6 (h. text מתעורר!).—[Ḥull. 10ᵃ איתרעאי, v. רְעַע.]
רְעִי
- a grazing animal. Pesik. R. s. 16 (expl. רעי, I Kings V, 3) מן המרעה from the pasture ground; Yalk. Kings 176. Sabb. XX, 4 גורפין מלפני הפטם … מפני הר׳ (Y. ed. הריעי) you may (on the Sabbath) sweep the crib before the stall-ox, and move (the remnants) aside for the sake of the grazing animal (which is ordinarily fed on the pasture); Y. ib. 17ᶜ bot. מפני (ש)מה שהפטם מותיר הר׳ אוכל because the grazing animal eats what the stall-ox leaves over.—[Comment. erroneously: מפני הר׳ on account of soiled matter, v. next w.] e.g. 1 Kings 5:3
רְעִי ²
- (רעה = רוה, v. רֵיאָה a. רֳאִי II; cmp. דִּבְיוֹנִים) secretion, excrements. Bekh. 7ᵇ דרך הר׳ (Rashi דרך בית הר׳) in the secretory channel (instead of in the womb). Kel. XVII, 2 בית הר׳ … מקבל את הר׳ (ed. Dehr. הראי) a night chamber which is too defective to retain liquid matter, although it retains solid excrements. Cant. R. to III, 4 בית הר׳ privy. Tosef. Ber. II, 16; Ber. 25ᵇ גרף של ר׳ a vessel for excrements; Sabb. 47ᵃ; a. fr.
רֵעִי
- Targ. Ps. LXXXIII, 11 (ed. Wil. רְעִי; ed. Lag. ריעיא). Targ. Job XX, 7 רַעְיֵה (ed. Lag. רַעְיֵיה). Targ. Esth. V, 1, v. אֲצִיצָא. Targ. Y. Deut. XXIII, 14. Targ. Y. Lev. IV, 11; a. fr.
רְעִי III
- (v. רְעִי I) pasture. Targ. II Esth. IV, 1. Targ. I Kings V, 3. Targ. Gen. XLVII, 4 (O. ed. Berl. רִעְ׳). Targ. Ex. III, 1; 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7472, 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.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Rei). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Friendly, one who maintained true allegiance to king David (1 Kings 1:8) when Adonijah rebelled.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(friendly), a person mentioned (in (1 Kings 1:8) only) as having remained firm to David's cause when Adonijah rebelled. (B.C. 1015.)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
my shepherd; my companion; my friend
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 1 verse that also exists in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 1 Hebrew verse 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.
