שָׁאַף
to pant
‘to pant’ is one of 2 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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
Form
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
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).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H7602 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 56:1 שְׁאָפַ֣/נִי Qal pf 3ms + sfx pers 1cs Be merciful to me, God, for man wants to swallow me up. All day long, he attacks and oppresses me.
- Psalms 56:2 שָׁאֲפ֣וּ Qal pf 3cp My enemies want to swallow me up all day long, For they are many who fight proudly against me.
- Psalms 57:3 שֹׁאֲפִ֣/י Qal ptcp.act ms cs + sfx pers 1cs He will send from heaven, and save me, He rebukes the one who is pursuing me. Selah. God will send out his loving kindness and his truth.
- Psalms 119:131 וָ/אֶשְׁאָ֑פָ/ה conj + Qal wimpf 1cs + sfx h I opened my mouth wide and panted, For I longed for your commandments.
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.
שאף (shâʼaph) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “to pant.” Scripture first uses it in Job 5:5. It turns up in 14 verses across 7 books, an uncommon footprint. It concentrates in Psalms, which alone accounts for 29% of its uses. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7602 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 →
- 14
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 14 distinct verses.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,910
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,910 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 14 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 14 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 57%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 6 verses · 43%
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 2 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†: Would swallow me up 2×
- American Standard Version†: Desire 1×, Earnestly desireth 1×, Gapeth 1×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Pant 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: And 1×, Attacks 1×, Desire 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7602 across 14† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 H7602 across 14† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7602 across 14† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 H7602 across 15† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common 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.
שאף I gasp, pant, pant after, long for
שאף II crush, trample on
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. שָׁאַף vb. gasp, pant, pant after, long for
II. [ שָׁאַף ] vb. crush, trample on
— 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.
אַף I
- also, too. Keth. 6ᵇ; a. fr. אף הוא the same. Aboth II, 6.—אף על פי (abbr. אע"פ) prop. even following the dictation of; אף על גב (abbr. אע"ג) prop. even on the top of, = notwithstanding, although (the former mostly in Mishnah, the latter in Gemara). Keth. V, 1 אע"פ שאמרו וכ׳ although the Rabbis have said; a. fr.—Meg. 3ᵃ אע"ג דאיהו לא חזא although he does not see it; a. v. fr.—אף על פי כן nevertheless. Snh. 98ᵃ; a. fr.—Chald. same. Targ. O. Num. XVI, 13; a. e. V. אוּף.
אַף II
- v. אָנַף) prop. breath, hence
- 1. nose. Midr. Till. to Ps. XVIII, 5 (interpret, ăfafuni, ib.) הגיעו הצרות עד א׳ the troubles have risen up to the nose.
- 2. panting, anger.—Du. אַפַּיִם. Y. Taan. II, 65ᵇ bot. ארך אף … ארך אפים וכ׳, it does not read (Jonah IV, 2), Slow of anger but of angers, which means that He is long suffering both to the righteous and the wicked; a. fr. e.g. Jonah 4:2
- 3. pr. n. m. Af, allegorical name of the angel administering justice., allegorical name of the angel administering justice. Ex. R. s. 41 end; s. 44; Deut. R. s. 3.—
- *4. overheated condition, wearines. Maksh. III, 8 בשעת האף when the animal is overheated, Var. יַחַף q. v.
אַף III
- , only in du. אַפַּיִם face (cheeks).
שָׁאַף I
- (b. h.) = שׁוּף II, to tread, press. Lev. R. s. 28, a. e. (ref. to שאף, Job V, 5), v. דָּחַק. Tanḥ. Mick. 2 (ref. to Dan. II, 2) אשפים לשון דחק שנ׳ השואפים וכ׳ the root in ashshafim signifies pressure, as we read (Am. VIII, 4), ‘hear ye this, hashshoăfim (who press) the needy. Midr. Till. to Ps. LI. כל מי … ושׁוֹאֵף ברגלו וכ׳ he who knows that he has sinned, but stamps with his foot and removes the sin from his sight &c.; a. e. e.g. Job 5:5
שְׁאָף
- , to rub, v. שׁוּף II ch.
שָׁאַף II
- (b. h.) = שׁוּף I, to blow, pant, long for. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXIX, 131 כמו (ש)התנינים שׁוֹאֲפִים לרוח כן הייתי שׁוֹאֵף לתורתך (not רוהך) as the monsters pant for wind, so do I pant (longing) for thy Law.
שְׁאַף
- 1. same. Targ. Job VII, 2.—2) (cmp. שאב) to resorb. Sabb. 129ᵃ ואתא זיקא ושָׁאֵיף ליה מיניה and a hot wind may rise and suck it (the small quantity of blood left) out of him. Snh. 64ᵃ דשאיף קליה Ms. M. Rashi (ed. דשייף), v. שְׁאֵב.—[Sabb. 139ᵇ שאפו שיכרא, v. שְׁפֵי II.]
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 14 distinct written forms H7602 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| הַ/שֹּׁאֲפִ֖ים | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Amos 8:4 | 1 |
| הַ/שֹּׁאֲפִ֤ים | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Amos 2:7 | 1 |
| וְ/אֶשְׁאַ֖ף | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Isaiah 42:14 | 1 |
| וְ/שָׁאַ֖ף | Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Job 5:5 | 1 |
| וְ/שָׁאֹ֨ף | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Absolute | Ezekiel 36:3 | 1 |
| וָ/אֶשְׁאָ֑פָ/ה | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Psalms 119:131 | 1 |
| יִשְׁאַף | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Job 7:2 | 1 |
| שְׁאָפַ֣/נִי | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 56:1 | 1 |
| שָׁאֲפ֣וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Psalms 56:2 | 1 |
| שָׁאֲפ֥וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Jeremiah 14:6 | 1 |
| שָׁאֲפָ֣ה | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Jeremiah 2:24 | 1 |
| שֹׁאֲפִ֣/י | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Psalms 57:3 | 1 |
| שׁוֹאֵ֛ף | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 1:5 | 1 |
| תִּשְׁאַ֥ף | Verb, Qal, Jussive, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Job 36:20 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 14 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.
