שָׂבַר
to wait
‘to wait’ 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
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem. Here: ‘wait’
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- 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”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H7663 appears in the Book of Nehemiah — 2 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.
Nehemiah
- Nehemiah 2:13 שֹׂבֵ֜ר Qal ptcp.act ms I went out by night by the valley gate, even toward the jackal's well, and to the dung gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates of it were consumed with fire.
- Nehemiah 2:15 שֹׂבֵ֖ר Qal ptcp.act ms Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall; and I turned back, and entered by the valley gate, and so returned.
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.
At its core, שבר (sâbar) means “to wait.” It first appears in Ruth 1:13. Spanning 8 verses in 5 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Psalms (38% of all occurrences). Across 2 stems, its meaning turns on the binyan (Qal, Piel). Dig into 8-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7663 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 8 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 8 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 7 verses · 88%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 13%
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†: Viewed 2×
- American Standard Version†: Viewed 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Look 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Looking intently 2×, Wait 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7663 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H7663 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H7663 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H7663 across 11† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 4 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.
שבר I inspect, examine (van d. H. שֹׁבֵר [so 𝔊 συντρίβων], but Mas. שׂ׳ v. Norzi
Qal
- Pt. שֹׂבֵר, c. ב obj., Ne 2:13, 15 I examined into the wall, inspected it closely. e.g. Nehemiah 2:13
שבר II
Piel
- wait, hope (Aramaism; cf. Aramaic סְבַר think, Pa. hope; ܣܒܰܪ believe, hope, Pa. think, Aph. hope);—Pf. 1 s. שִׂבַּרְתִּי ψ 119:166, 3 pl. שִׂבְּרוּ Est 9:1; Impf. 3 mpl. יְשַׂבְּרוּ Is 38:18, יְשַׂבֵּ֑רוּ ψ 145:15, יְשַׂבֵּר֑וּן ψ 104:27; 2 fpl. תְּשַׂבֵּרְנָה Ru 1:13;— e.g. Psalms 119:166
- 1. wait + לָהֵן therefor Ru 1:13. e.g. Ruth 1:13
- 2. hope for, ל rei ψ 119:166, אֶל rei Is 38:18, אֶל pers. ψ 104:27; 145:15; ל inf. Est 9:1 hope to rule. e.g. Psalms 119:166
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
vb. inspect, examine (van d. H. שֹׁבֵר [so 𝔊 συντρίβων], but Mas. שׂ׳ v. Norzi; hence connex. with Arabic سَبَرَ probe a wound, try, examine, improb., and this (according to Frä261) denom. from Aramaic loan-word; improb. also is connex. with Aramaic סְבַר think (cf. foll.), KauAram. im AT, 85);—
— 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.
שֵׂבֶר
- , v. סֵבֶר
שְׂבַר
- , Poël שׂוֹבַר, v. סְבַר II.
שָׁבַר I
- (b. h.)
- 1. to break. Y. Ab. Zar. II, 41ᵈ (play on אכל תשברו, Deut. II, 6) באכל תִּשְׁבְּרוֹ האכלתו שְׁבַרְתּוֹ with food break him (his ill-will); when thou hast given him to eat, thou hast broken him; אם היה קשה עליך באכל תשברו וכ׳ if he is hard on thee, break him with food, and if not (if thou succeedest not with food), heap silver upon him; Y. Sabb. I, 3ᶜ bot. Tanḥ. Sh’laḥ. 9 נתכוונו … לִשְׁבּוֹר לבן וכ׳ the spies intended to break the heart (courage) of the Israelites (ref. to ויניאו, Num. XXXII, 9). Tosef. B. Mets. II, 26 אוהבו … כדי לשבור את לבו if a friend requires help for loading, and an enemy for unloading (to relieve the broken down beast of burden), it is commended to help the enemy in order to break his heart (hatred); (B. Mets. 32ᵇ כדי לכוף את יצרו). Pesik. Eth Korb., p. 59ᵇ נטל את הטבלא … ושְׁבָרָהּ he took the plate … and shattered it. Ex. R. s. 18 (ref. to Ps. LXXVII, 7) נזכרת אני את השברים שהיית שׁוֹבֵר וכ׳ I remember the breaks with which thou brokest (the calamities with which thou didst visit) the empires for me by night; בא … שָׁבַרְתָּ וכ׳ Sennacherib came upon me, thou brokest him at night (v. infra Hof.); a. v. fr.—Y. Shebi. VIII, beg. 37ᵈ כל מדרש שאתה דורש ושׁוֹבֵר וכ׳ a textual interpretation which you introduce, and by which you break (upset partially) a previous interpretation of the same verse, is no legitimate interpretation. Tanḥ. Vayera 13 סופו … שובר את ראשו the end of the verse breaks (contradicts) its beginning. Cant. R. to VII, 9 (expl. דתבריא, Dan. III, 2) the scholars (scholastici) are called d’thabraya (v. תְּבַר), שהם שׁוֹבְרִים הדברים because they break (twist out of joint) the words (of the law).—Part. pass. שָׁבוּר, f. שְׁבוּרָה having a broken limb, injured. B. Mets. I, 4 רצין … אחר צבי ש׳ running … after a wounded deer. Ib. 94ᵇ ש׳ ומתה a borrowed animal that was injured or that died. Ib. נשבעין על הש׳ must make oath concerning an injured animal in their charge; a. fr.—2) (denom. of שׁוֹבֵר) to give a receipt; to acknowledge payment; to acquit. Tosef. Keth. IV, 11 שָׁבְרָה לו (על) מקצת כתובתה שברה לו אל כולה if she gave him a receipt for a portion of her jointure, she has released him of all obligations of the marriage contract. Ib. IX, 1 כונסה … והיא שׁוֹבֶרֶת לו וכ׳ he marries her and divorces her (and remarries her), and she gives him a receipt for her jointure (by which act the mortgage on the entire estate is cancelled); Y. ib. VIII, 32ᵇ bot.; Y. Yeb. IV, 5ᵈ; a. fr. e.g. Deuteronomy 2:6
- to break. Sabb. 105ᵇ המקרע … והמְשַׁבֵּר כליו וכ׳ he who in his anger tears his garment or breaks his vessels, … let him be in thy sight like an idolater; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְשׁוּבָּר. Pesik. R. s. 17 (ref. to Job I, 15) מש׳ ומלוקה היה he (that escaped) was broken of limbs and smitten; Ruth R. to I, 5; Lev. R. s. 17 מוּשְׁבָּר; Yalk. Job 892 מושבר. e.g. Job 1:15
- to be broken. Pesik. Vattom., p. 129ᵇ (ref. to Ps. LXXVII, 7) נזכרת אני שֶׁבֶר שהוּשְׁבַּרְתִּי וכ׳ (not שכר שהושכ׳) I remember how I was broken (crushed) among the empires (v. supra); Lam. R. to I, 2 שהָשְׁבַּרְתִּי … בלילן וכ׳ how I was broken before thee in the night of persecution by the empires; Yalk. Ps. 816; a. fr.—Part. מוּשְׁבָּר, v. supra. e.g. Psalms 77:7
- , Nithpa. נִשְׁתַּבֵּר same. B. Mets. VI, 4. Kel. III, 3 ונִשְׁבְּרָה and was again broken. Ib. XI, 1 נִשְׁבְּרוּ טהרו when they are broken, they are no longer susceptible of uncleanness. Gen. R. s. 91 נִשְׁתַּבְּרוּ שיניהם their teeth were broken (fell out). Y. Kidd. I, beg. 58ᵇ נשבר קל וחומר the conclusion a minori is impaired. Ab. Zar. 50ᵇ, sq. זריקה מִשְׁתַּבֶּרֶת an interrupted throwing, i.e. sprinkling a liquid, but not throwing a solid object; a. fr.—Treat. Der. Er. ch. X מִשְׁתַּבֵּר על השיש ‘has his limbs broken’ (a sort of massage) on the marble floor (in the bath-house, in the presence of other people).
שָׁבַר II
- to buy provisions. Gen. R. s. 91 אף … לִשְׁבָּר אוכל Joseph, too, knew that his brothers were coming down to Egypt to buy food; ib. כל מי שנכנס לִשְׁבּוֹר וכ׳ let whomsoever enters (Egypt) to buy food register his name &c; Tanḥ. Mikk. 8.
- to sell provisions, to supply. Ib. (ref. to מַשְׁבִּיר, Prov. XI, 26) זה יוסף שזן וכ׳ that means Joseph who sustained the world &c.; Gen. R. l. c.; a. e.—[Tanḥ. ed. Bub. Vayesheb 13 משביר אותו, read: מַשְׂכִּיר.] e.g. Proverbs 11:26
שֶׁבֶר I
- 1. break, fracture. Sabb. XXII, 6 אין מחזירין את הש׳ you must not set a fracture (on the Sabbath). T’bul Yom IV, 7 שלום מן הש׳ וכ׳ (he meant) that it will be brought up in safety without being broken and without being spilt; Y. Ter. II, 41ᶜ top; a. e.—Trnsf. destruction, calamity. Gen. R. s. 91 (play on שֶׁבֶר, Gen. XLII, 1, a. סֵבֶר) כי יש ש׳ זה הרעב כי יש סבר זה השבע וכ׳ ‘that there is a calamity’, that means the famine; ‘that there is brightness’, that means plenty &c. Ib. והלא כבר נאמר ותרעב … יש ש׳ has it not been said before, ‘and all the land of Egypt was hungry’? what is meant by ‘there is a calamity in Egypt’? &c. Pesik. Vattom., p. 129ᵇ (not שכר); Yalk. Ps. 816, v. שָׁבַר I; a. e.—Pl. שְׁבָרִים, constr. שִׁבְרֵי. Gen. R. s. 30 (ref. to Job XII, 5) שהיו מוכנים לשני ש׳ לשבר מלמעלן וכ׳ they were predestined for two calamities, for destruction from above (rain), and for destruction from below (rise of the deeps). Ex. R. s. 18, v. שָׁבַר I. Kel. XI, 3, a. fr. שברי כלים fragments of vessels, broken vessels. B. Bath. 14ᵇ שברי לוחות the tablets broken by Moses. Ber. 8ᵇ הזהרו בזקן … לוחות ושברי וכ׳ be careful not to despise an old man that has forgotten his learning through no fault of his, for we are told, the (whole) tablets and the broken ones were deposited in the Ark; Men. 99ᵃ; a. fr. e.g. Genesis 42:1
- 2. a broken ejaculation, sigh, esp. the broken disconnected sounds produced on the Shofar. Y. Taan. II, 65ᵇ top (play on אֵד, Gen. II, 6) עלה ש׳ מלמטן וכ׳ when the broken tune (at the prayer meeting) rises from below, at once the rain comes down.—Pl. as ab. R. Hash. 34ᵃ שיעור תרועה כשלשה ש׳ the value of a t’ruʿah (a succession of tremulous sounds) is equal to three sh’barim. Ib. אתקין … שלשה ש׳ תרועה וכ׳ R. Abbahu introduced in Cæsaræa (for the New Year’s Day) the blowing of a t’ḳiʿah (a succession of connected notes), three sh’barim, a tr’uʿah, and a t’ḳi‘ah; a. e. e.g. Genesis 2:6
שֶׁבֶר II
- ; ש׳ רעבון, v. Gen. XLII, 19 a. 33, cmp. Ps. CIV, 11; v. Ehrlich Miḳra ki-Pheschuṭô, p. 114 sq.) (sale of) provisions (in time of famine). Gen. R. s. 91 מפני … יש אוכל במצרים שאמר הכתוב יש ש׳ וכ׳ why does not the Scripture say (Gen. XLII, 1) ‘there was okhel (food) in Egypt? (why is it) that the text says, ‘there was sheber’? e.g. Genesis 42:19
שִׁבַר
- (denom. of בַּר II, בְּרָא) [boy, Syr.,] simple, foolish (corresp. to h. פֶּתִי). Targ. Prov. IX, 4 (some ed. שכר, corr. acc.). Ib. XIV, 15. Targ. Job V, 2 (ed. Wil. שְׁבִירָא). Targ. Ps. XIX, 8 (ed. Lag. שִׁיבְרָא; ed. Wil. שִׂבְ׳, corr. acc.); a. e.—Pl. שַׁבְרֵי. Targ. Prov. I, 4; 22; 32; a. fr.—Fem. שְׁבַרְתָּא. Ib. IX, 13 (ed. Wil. שִׁבְרָתָה; some ed. שכ׳, corr. acc.).
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 8 distinct written forms H7663 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| יְשַׂבְּר֥וּ | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Isaiah 38:18 | 1 |
| יְשַׂבֵּ֑רוּ | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Psalms 145:15 | 1 |
| יְשַׂבֵּר֑וּ/ן | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Psalms 104:27 | 1 |
| שִׂבְּר֜וּ | Verb, Piel, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Esther 9:1 | 1 |
| שִׂבַּ֣רְתִּי | Verb, Piel, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Psalms 119:166 | 1 |
| שֹׂבֵ֖ר | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Nehemiah 2:15 | 1 |
| שֹׂבֵ֜ר | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Nehemiah 2:13 | 1 |
| תְּשַׂבֵּ֗רְנָה | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Feminine, Plural | Ruth 1:13 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7663, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 4 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
