רָעַם
to thunder
‘to thunder’ is one of 5 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Hiphil verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘make the sound of thunder’
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
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).
Every verse where H7481 appears in the Book of Psalms — 4 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.
Psalms
- Psalms 18:13 וַ/יַּרְעֵ֬ם conj + Hiphil wimpf 3ms Yahweh also thundered in the sky, The Most High uttered his voice: Hailstones and coals of fire.
- Psalms 29:3 הִרְעִ֑ים Hiphil pf 3ms Yahweh's voice is on the waters. The God of glory thunders, even Yahweh on many waters.
- Psalms 96:11 יִֽרְעַ֥ם Qal impf 3ms Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar, and it's fullness!
- Psalms 98:7 יִרְעַ֣ם Qal impf 3ms Let the sea roar with its fullness; The world, and those who dwell therein.
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.
“to thunder” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb רעם (râʻam). Scripture first uses it in 1 Samuel 1:6. It appears 13 verses across 6 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in Psalms. The verb spans 2 stems, from Qal to Hiphil. See the sense tree, 13-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7481 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 →
- 13
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 13 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,001
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,001 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 13 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 13 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 62%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 38%
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: Roar 3×, Thundered 3×, Thundereth 2×
- American Standard Version: Roar 3×, Thundered 3×, Thundereth 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Resound 3×, Thundered 3×, Thunders 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Let 3×, Roar 3×, Thundered 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7481 across 13 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7481 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H7481 across 13 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7481 across 18 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
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
- make the sound of thunder, thunder
Hiphil
- . thunder, cause to thunder
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
[ רָעַם ] vb. denom. thunder
— 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.
רָעַם
- [to vibrate,] to thunder, rumble, roar.
- 1. same. Ab. d’R. N. ch. XXXIII ed. Schechter same. Ab. d’R. N. ch. XXXIII ed. Schechter מצרים הִרְעִימוּ עליהם בקולם אף הקב"ה ה׳ עליהם קולו the Egyptians roared at (threatened) them with their voices, so did the Lord cause his voice to roar at them (II Sam. XXII, 14); (oth. ed. ה׳ עליהם בקול על הים, ref. to Job XXXVII, 5). Midr. Sam. ch. V אם עולים … אני מַרְעִים בקולי וכ׳ if they rise up to heaven, from there I will thunder with my voice and throw them down; Yalk. Sam. 86; a. e. e.g. 2 Samuel 22:14
- 2. to cause to thunder, v. supra.
- 3. to cause to murmur. Ib. 77 (ref. to הרעמה, I Sam. I, 6) את מַרְעֶמֶת אותה וכ׳ thou makest her ‘thunder’ against me, … there are no thunders which are not followed by (fructifying) rain, I will visit her at once; Pesik. R. s. 43 מְתַרְעֶמֶת (fr. תִּרְעֵם). Ib. בעבור הַרְעִימָהּ על אלהים לטובתה in order to make her murmur against God (complain in prayer) for her own good. e.g. 1 Samuel 1:6
- 1. (v. (v. תַּרְעוּמֶת) to be excited, rebel, be discontented. Meg. 6ᵃ זבולון מִתְרַעֵם על מדותיו היה Zebulun was dissatisfied with the measures he received (the share of the land allotted to him).
- 2. to be disturbed, get into commotion. Pesik. R. s. 11 כולם מִתְרַעֲמִים ומרגישים all the nuts in the pile are disturbed and in commotion; Yalk. Cant. 992.
רְעַם I
- Targ. Esth. VI, 1 רְעִימִין (ed. Vien. רַעֲמִין).
- to make rebellious. Targ. Num. XIV, 36.
- 1. to be rebellious, to murmur. Ib. 2. Targ. Prov. XXIV, 7. Targ. Ps. LV, 3 (h. text אריד); a. fr.—
- *2. to be in commotion, troubled. Targ. Ez. XXVII, 35 [prob. to be read:] אִתְרְעִימוּ (ed. אתרשימו, h. text רעמו).
רְעַם II
- (= רוּם) to swing, be high.
- to swing, lift up. Targ. Y. Ex. XIV, 16. Targ. Y. II, Num. XX, 11 (ed. Vien. ארעב, corr. acc.). Targ. Y. II, Gen. XXXIX, 18.
- to pride one’s self. Targ. Prov. XXIV, 7.
רַעַם
- thunder. Gen. R. s. 12 beg. (ref. to Job XXVI, 14) הר׳ הזה כשהוא יוצא כתיקונו וכ׳ no human being could stand the thunder coming forth as it is prepared (in its full strength); ib. סדרו של ר׳ the arrangement (nature) of the thunder; Yalk. Job 914; a. e.—Pl. רְעָמִים. Ber. IX, 1. Ib. 59ᵃ, v. עַקְמוּמִית. Ḥull. 86ᵃ. Pesik. R. s. 43; Yalk. Sam. 77, v. רָעַם; a. e. e.g. Job 26:14
רַעַם ²
- Targ. Is. XXIX, 6. Targ. Y. Ex. XIX, 16.
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 13 distinct written forms H7481 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 H7481, 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
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 → 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 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 13 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.
