שׂוּר
to rule
‘to rule’ is one of 3 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
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
Form
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H7786 appears in the Book of Hosea — 1 distinct verse. 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.
Hosea
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 rule” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb שור (sûwr). It is rare — just 2 verses in the entire Hebrew Bible. More than half of its appearances fall in Judges. First canonically at Judges 9:22, it enters the text early. Different stems carry different senses — BDB groups them under 2 stems, among them Qal and Hithpael. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7786 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 →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,807
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,807 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 2 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 2 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 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: Had reigned 1×, They have made princes 1×, Yea he had power 1×
- American Standard Version: Me 1×, Was prince 1×, Yea 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Had reigned 1×, They make princes 1×, Yes he struggled 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: And 1×, He struggled 1×, Ruled 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7786 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7786 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7786 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7786 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 Hithpael (reflexive or reciprocal).
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
- Impf. 3 ms. וַיָּ֫שַׂר עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל Ju 9:22 Abim. ruled over Isr. three years; 3 mpl. שָׂרִים … יָשׂ֑רוּ Is 32:1 princes shall govern (prince it) justly (‖ יִמְלָךְ־מֶלֶךְ), cf. Pr 8:16; Pt. לִהְיוֹת … שֹׂרֵר Est 1:22 that every man should bear rule בְּבֵיתוֹ. e.g. Judges 9:22
Hithpael
- Impf., 2 ms. + Inf. abs. כִּי־תִשְׂתָּרֵר עָלֵינוּ גַּס־הִשְׂתָּרֵר Nu 16:13 that thou shouldst also keep playing the prince over us.—יָסֹר 1 Ch 15:22 v. יָסַר Qal and שַׂר 4 b. Hiph. Pf. 3 pl. metapl. הֵשִׂירוּ (Ges§ 67 v) Ho 8:4 they made princes (abs.; ‖ הִמְלִיכוּ). e.g. Numbers 16:13
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. denom. (Gerber20) be, or act as, prince, rule;—
— 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.
שְׁוָורִים
- , pl. of שׁוֹר.
שְׁוַר
- , v. שְׁוַור, שַׁוָּור.
שׁוּר I
- to sing; Polel שׁוֹרֵר, v. שִׁיר I.
שׁוּר II
- מִדְבַּר ש׳ desert of Shur (caravan road), v. כּוּב, a. next. w.
שׁוּר III
- 1. wall, fortification, stronghold. Gen. R. s. 98 (ref. to שׁוֹר, Gen. XLIX, 6; v. Targ. O. a. Y. 1) עקרתון שׁוּרָן של גרים you have uprooted the stronghold (reliance) of proselytes (by dealing faithlessly with the Shechemites); בשביל … עקרתם שורן וכ׳ in order to gratify your passion, you have uprooted &c. e.g. Genesis 49:6
- 2. protected habitation, civilized condition (cmp. יִשּׁוּב), opp. מדבר. Ex. R. s. 24 (play on מדבר שור, Ex. XV, 22) עד שלא יצאו … נעשה העולם ש׳ before Israel went out of Egypt, the world was a desert (lawless); when they went forth, the world became civilized; עד שלא קיבלו … ש׳ before Israel received the Law, the world was a desert; when they received it, the world became &c. e.g. Exodus 15:22
שׁוּר
- 1. wall, fortification. Targ. O. Gen. XLIX, 6 (Y. I שׁוֹר; v. preced.). Targ. Lam. II, 8. Targ. Prov. XXV, 28; a. fr.—Lam. R. to II, 8 (expl. חל וחומה, ib.) ש׳ ובר ש׳ the large circumvallation and the smaller wall; Pes. 86ᵃ; Y. ib. VII, 35ᵇ bot. Y. B. Bath. II, 13ᵇ bot. ש׳ דחמץ the wall of Emesa; M.M. Kat. 26ᵃ ש׳ דלודקיא the wall of Laodicea; a. fr.—Pl. שׁוּרִין, שׁוּרַיָּא. Targ. Ex. XIV, 22. Targ. II Kings XXV, 4. Targ. O. Deut. XXVIII, 52; a. fr.
- 2. (v. שׁוּרָה) line, road. Y. Keth. VII, 31ᶜ, v. פּוּתְיָא.—V. שׁוּרְתָא.
שׁוֹר I
- , Fl. to Levy Talm. Dict. IV, p. 680) ox. B. Kam. 65ᵇ ש׳ בן יומו קרוי ש׳ an ox on the day of his birth is called shor (by ref. to Lev. XXII, 27). Ib. I, 1 הש׳ damage done by an ox (Ex. XXI, 28; XXII, 4). Ib. IV, 7 ש׳ המדבר the ox of the desert (aurochs, being ownerless). Kil. VIII, 6; Ḥull. 80ᵃ בר(ה) ש׳ wild ox, aurochs; a. fr.—Erub. 53ᵇ (in enigmatic speech) ש׳ משפט (not במשפט) = תור דין = תְּרָדִין, v. תְּרָדָא I.—Pl. שְׁוָורִים, שְׁוָורִין, שְׁוָר׳. Gen. R. s. 75 (ref. to Gen. XXXII, 6) משור אחד יצאו ש׳ הרבה from the one ox (which I originally possessed) many oxen went forth. B. Kam. III, 8. Y. Gitt. IX, 46ᵈ bot.; a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 22:27
שׁוֹר II
- chain, cord, esp. umbilical cord. Lev. R. s. 5 ואני חותכת את שׁוֹרְךָ and I shall cut thy umbilical cord (with which thou art attached to me); Yalk. Job 908 טבורך).
שִׁיר I
- denom. of next w.) to sing. Ber. 14ᵇ ושַׁרְנוּ לך and we sang (praises) unto thee. Snh. 91ᵇ (ref. to Ex. XV, 1) שָׁר לא נאמר אלא יָשִׁיר it does not read, ‘he sang’; but, ‘he shall sing’; Mekh. B’shall., Shir., s. 1; a. e. e.g. Exodus 15:1
- ) שׁוֹרֵר same. Num. R. s. 3 (play on ב̇כ̇וש̇ר̇ות, Ps. LXVIII, 7) אותן שהיו ב̇וכ̇ין … מְ֗ש̇ו̇רְ֗רִין עכשיו those who formerly wept …, were now singing. Ib. ועבד מְשׁוֹרֵר וכ׳ and the slave sings, because he is relieved &c. B. Bath. 120ᵃ מְשׁוֹרְרִים לפניה went singing (bridal songs) before her; a. fr.—[Midr. Till. to Ps. CXVI באין ושוררין, read: ושׁוֹרִין, v. שָׁרָה II.]—מְשׁוֹרֵר singer, esp. Temple singer (Levite). Arakh. 11ᵇ מ׳ ששיער ומשוער ששורר if one designated as a singer acts as gate-guard, or a gate-guard acts as singer; a. fr.—Pl. מְשׁוֹרְרִים, מְשׁוֹרְרִין. Ib. שאתה מן המ׳ וכ׳ for thou belongest to the singers, and not to the gate-guards; a. fr. e.g. Psalms 68:7
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 2 distinct written forms H7786 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וַ/יָּ֧שַׂר | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Judges 9:22 | 1 |
| וָ/יָּ֤שַׂר | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Hosea 12:4 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7786, 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 2 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 2 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.
