שְׁבַק
to leave
‘to leave’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
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
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
Person
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 3 times (60%)
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Hothpaal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (20%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 5 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H7662 appears — 5 distinct verses across 2 books. 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.
Ezra 1 verse
Daniel 4 verses
- Daniel 2:44 תִשְׁתְּבִ֑ק Hothpaal impf 3fs In the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty of it be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
- Daniel 4:15 שְׁבֻ֔קוּ Qal impv 2mp Nevertheless leave the stump of its roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of the sky: and let his portion be with the animals in the grass of the earth:
- Daniel 4:23 שְׁבֻ֔קוּ Qal impv 2mp Whereas the king saw a watcher and a holy one coming down from the sky, and saying, Hew down the tree, and destroy it; nevertheless leave the stump of the roots of it in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field, and let it be wet with the dew of the sky: and let his portion be with the animals of the field, until seven times pass over him;
- Daniel 4:26 לְ/מִשְׁבַּ֞ק prep + Qal inf.cs Whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree; your kingdom shall be sure to you, after that you shall have known that the heavens do rule.
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.
The Hebrew verb שבק centers on the idea of “to leave.” It occurs a mere 5 verses across Scripture. The word gravitates to Daniel (80%), then Ezra. Debuting at Ezra 6:7, it then recurs through the corpus. The verb spans 2 stems, from Peal to Hithpeel. 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 H7662 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 →
- 5
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 5 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,337
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,337 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 5 occurrences in the concordance →
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 5 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 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: Leave 3×
- American Standard Version: Leave 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Leave 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Leave 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7662 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H7662 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H7662 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H7662 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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. This entry also uses Peal (the basic Aramaic stem, parallel to Qal) and Hithpeel (the reflexive or passive Aramaic stem).
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.
Peal
- . leave roots
Hithpeel
- . be left
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
[ שְׁבַק ] vb. leave, let alone
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שובק (Shôwbêq) (H7733) — Shobek.
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.
*שָׁבַק
- = next w. Pesik. R. s. 44 שָׁבְקוֹ בבית וכ׳ leave him in prison, and let him be famished &c.; (Yalk. Hos. 531 חובשהו, not חבשוהו, v. חָבַשׁ).
שְׁבַק
- (corresp. to h. עָזַב)
- 1. to leave, let go; to forsake, abandon; to leave behind; to bequeath. Targ. Jer. LI, 9. Targ. Ex. XXIII, 5. Targ. Jud. XVI, 26 (h. text הניחה); a. v. fr.—Part. pass. שְׁבִיק; f. שְׁבִיקָא, שְׁבִיקְתָּא; pl. שְׁבִיקִין; שְׁבִיקָתָא, שְׁבִיקָן. Targ. Jer. LI, 5 (h. text אלמן). Targ. Ez. XXXVI, 4. Ib. XLI, 9; 11 (h. text מֻנָּח); a. fr.—Y. Nidd. II, end, 50ᵇ אמר שׁוֹבְקְתֵיה לצפרא he said (to the woman), leave it (with me) for the morning. Sabb. 32ᵃ שַׁבְקֵיה וכ׳, v. רַוְיָא. Yoma 12ᵃ למִישְׁבַּק, v. אוּשְׁפִּיזָא. Arakh. 22ᵃ מי שַׁבְקִינָן מזוני וכ׳ shall we leave the alimony (which the widow receives out of the estate, as long as her dowry is not satisfied) unguarded? Ib. מי שבקינן ליה do we allow him (to take interest)? B. Bath. 125ᵃ לאו הני מעות ש׳ אבוהון it is not these coins that their father left them (when he died). Gitt. 37ᵇ, a. fr. (לא שבק) לא שָׁבֵיק (אינש) וכ׳, v. הֶיתֵּרָא. Bekh. 24ᵃ במקום דידה לא שַׁבְקָה דידה וכ׳ when the dam has her own child, she will not neglect her own and give suck to a strange animal. B. Mets. 92ᵃ לא ש׳ איסי חיי וכ׳ Isi would let no man live, i.e. with such a law humanity could not exist; B. Kam. 91ᵇ א"כ לא שַׁבְקַת חיי וכ׳ if this were the law, thou wouldst let no creature exist; a. fr.
- 2. to remit, pardon, forgive. Targ. Gen. XVIII, 24. Targ. Num. XIV, 19; a. fr.—Lev. R. s. 5, end יאי … דשָׁבֵיק לחובין וכ׳ it is becoming the great God to remit great sins; a. e.—Part. pass. as ab. Ib. הא שרי לך והא שביק לך this is remitted to thee, and this is forgiven thee; a. e.
- 3. to let go, send away, divorce. Gen. R. s. 17 שְׁבוֹקָא ההיא אנתתא מינך וכ׳ send that woman away, for she does thee no honor; ib. שַׁבְקָהּ להדא וכ׳ send that bad woman away; ib. לית בידי מה אֶשְׁבּוֹק לה I have not the means to divorce her (to give her her dowry); ib. לית בי מה אשבוק לה; Lev. R. s. 34 לית בי מִשְׁבַּק לה; (Yalk. Is. 352 לית לי ממרקא לה, v. מְרַק); Y. Keth. XI, 34ᵇ bot. שיבקה דלית וכ׳ (read: שׁוֹבְקָהּ or שׁבְּקָהּ Pa.) send her away &c.; a. e.
- same, to divorce. Gen. R. l. c. אנן יהבינן לה פורנא ושַׁבַּק יתה מינך (not ושבקית) we shall give her her dowry, and divorce thou her. Ib. ושַׁבַּקְתָּהּ מיניה (some ed. וש׳ יתה) and he divorced her; Lev. R. l. c. ושבקיה (corr. acc.); Y. Keth. l. c.; Yalk. Lev. 665. Y. Keth. VI, beg. 30ᶜ הן דמַשְׁבֵּיק וכ׳ he who divorces his wife and does not pay off &c., v. מְרַק.
- 1. to be let alone, be allowed. Koh. R. to V, 11 אוף למידמוך לית אנן מִישְׁתַּבְּקִין we are not even allowed to sleep.
- 2. to be remitted; to be forgiven. Targ. Gen. IV, 7. Targ. Lev. IV, 20; a. fr.
- 3. to be divorced. Cant. R. to I, 4 בעיין למִשְׁתַּבְּקָא דין מדין they wanted to be divorced from each other.
- 4. to be forsaken, abandoned. Targ. Jer. XLIX, 11 תשתבקון (ed. Wil. תשבקתון, corr. acc.). Ib. 25. Targ. Is. XVII, 9; 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.
Forms in the corpus
The 4 distinct written forms H7662 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| שְׁבֻ֔קוּ | Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural | Daniel 4:15 | 2 |
| לְ/מִשְׁבַּ֞ק | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct | Daniel 4:26 | 1 |
| שְׁבֻ֕קוּ | Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural | Ezra 6:7 | 1 |
| תִשְׁתְּבִ֑ק | Verb, Hothpaal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Daniel 2:44 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7662, 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
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 → 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 5 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 5 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.
