שָׁגָה
to err
‘to err’ is one of 8 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”). Here: ‘error’
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”). Here: ‘lead astray’
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- 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”).
- 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.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms 12 distinct
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 3 times (14%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 3 times (14%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 2 times (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 times (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (5%)
+4 more forms (4 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 21 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H7686 appears — 19 distinct verses across 9 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.
Leviticus 1 verse
Numbers 1 verse
Deuteronomy 1 verse
1 Samuel 1 verse
Job 3 verses
- Job 6:24 שָּׁ֝גִ֗יתִי Qal pf 1cs "Teach me, and I will hold my peace; Cause me to understand wherein I have erred.
- Job 12:16 וּ/מַשְׁגֶּֽה conj + Hiphil ptcp.act ms With him is strength and wisdom; The deceived and the deceiver are his.
- Job 19:4 שָׁגִ֑יתִי Qal pf 1cs If it is true that I have erred, My error remains with myself.
Psalms 3 verses
- Psalms 119:10 תַּ֝שְׁגֵּ֗/נִי Hiphil juss 2ms + sfx pers 1cs With my whole heart, I have sought you. Don't let me wander from your commandments.
- Psalms 119:21 הַ֝/שֹּׁגִים ptcl def.art + Qal ptcp.act mp You have rebuked the proud who are cursed, Who wander from your commandments.
- Psalms 119:118 שׁוֹגִ֣ים Qal ptcp.act mp You reject all those who stray from your statutes, For their deceit is in vain.
Proverbs 6 verses
- Proverbs 5:19 תִּשְׁגֶּ֥ה Qal impf 2ms A loving doe and a graceful deer-- Let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Be captivated always with her love.
- Proverbs 5:20 תִשְׁגֶּ֣ה Qal impf 2ms For why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another?
- Proverbs 5:23 יִשְׁגֶּֽה Qal impf 3ms He will die for lack of instruction. In the greatness of his folly, he will go astray.
- Proverbs 19:27 לִ֝/שְׁג֗וֹת prep + Qal inf.cs If you stop listening to instruction, my son, You will stray from the words of knowledge.
- Proverbs 20:1 שֹׁ֥גֶה Qal ptcp.act ms Wine is a mocker, and beer is a brawler; Whoever is led astray by them is not wise.
- Proverbs 28:10 מַשְׁגֶּ֤ה Hiphil ptcp.act ms Whoever causes the upright to go astray in an evil way, He will fall into his own trap; But the blameless will inherit good.
Isaiah 1 verse
Ezekiel 2 verses
- Ezekiel 34:6 יִשְׁגּ֤וּ Qal impf 3mp My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill: yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth; and there was none who searched or sought.
- Ezekiel 45:20 שֹׁגֶ֖ה Qal ptcp.act ms So you shall do on the seventh [day] of the month for everyone who errs, and for him who is simple: so shall you make atonement for the house.
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 err” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb שגה (shâgâh). First canonically at Leviticus 4:13, it enters the text early. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 19 verses — uncommon. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in Proverbs. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 2 stems (Qal, Hiphil, and more). See the sense tree, 19-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7686 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 →
- 19
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 19 distinct verses.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,462
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,462 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 19 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 19 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 12 verses · 63%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 21%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 16%
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: Have erred 3×
- American Standard Version: Reel 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Stray 2×, Strays unintentionally 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Stagger 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7686 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 18 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 H7686 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 19 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 H7686 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 H7686 across 24 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 21 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
9 senses and sub-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 9 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
- Pf. 1 s. שָׁגִיתִי Jb 6:24; 19:4, etc.; Impf. 3 ms. יִשְׁגֶּה Pr 5:23, etc.; Inf. cstr. שְׁגוֹת 19:27; Pt. שֹׁגֶה Ez 45:20; Pr 20:1, etc.;— e.g. Job 6:24
- 1. error, stray, of flock Ez 34:6 (fig.). e.g. Ezekiel 34:6
- 2. swerve, meander, reel or roll, in drunkenness, ב of drink Is 28:7(×2); = be intoxicated, Pr 20:1; so with (בּ) love 5:19, 20; שׁ׳ בָּרֹאֶה Is 28:7. e.g. Isaiah 28:7
- 3. go astray, morally, 1 S 26:21; Pr 5:23; Jb 6:24; 19:4, + 1 S 14:24 (reading שׁ׳ שְׁגָגָה) Th We Dr Now (after 𝔊; otherwise Bu HPS); c. מן, of י׳’s commands ψ 119:21, 118, מִן of words of knowledge Pr 19:27. e.g. 1 Samuel 26:21
- 4. specif. commit sin of ignorance, inadvertence Lv 4:13; Nu 15:22 (P) Ez 45:20 (cf. שׁגג). e.g. Leviticus 4:13
Hiphil
- lead astray:
- 1. lit., Pt. מַשְׁגֶּה Dt 27:18 (בַּדֶּרֶךְ). e.g. Deuteronomy 27:18
- 2. מַשׁ׳ mentally = mislead Jb 12:16. e.g. Job 12:16
- 3. morally, Pt. Pr 28:10 (רָ֑ע בְּדֶרֶךְ); Impf. 2 ms. sf. תַּשְׁגֵּנִי, c. מן of God’s commands ψ 119:10; + perhaps Jb 12:23 leadeth nations astray (מַשְׂגִּיא in Kenn., Field). e.g. Proverbs 28:10
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. go astray, error (Aramaic שְׁגָא, ܫܓܳܐ id.);—
— 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.
שָׁגָה
- , v. שגי
שגי
- to be confused; to reel; to err. Midr. Till. to Ps. VII אימתי ש׳ when did he (David) err? When Saul pursued him. Ib. ש׳ אדם וכ׳, v. infra; a. e.
- to cause to reel; to lead astray. Yalk. Ps. 829 מה הגפן הזו … וכסוף היא מגרה את קרנה וקרניה מַשְׁגִּין לאדם וכ׳ as in the case of the grape,—you cut it, and it is silent, you tread it, and it is silent, but at the end it stirs up its horns (like an angry bull), and its horns cause man to reel, and thrust him down; Yalk. Gen. 146 מְשִׁיגִּין (fr. שָׁגַג); Midr. Till. to Ps. LXXX, 9 (corr. acc.). Midr. Till. to Ps. VII (ref. to Job XII, 16) אם שגה אדם בדברי תורה דברי תורה משגון אותו if a man wants to go astray in the interpretation of the words of the Law, the words of the Law will lead him astray (ed. Bub. אם שגה אדם בדברי תורה משיגין אותו); a. e. e.g. Job 12:16
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 21 distinct written forms H7686 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 H7686, 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 → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. 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 16 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 19 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
- Leviticus 4:13
- Numbers 15:22
- Deuteronomy 27:18
- 1 Samuel 26:21
- Job 6:24
- Proverbs 5:19
- Isaiah 28:7
- Ezekiel 34:6
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.
