שַׁ֫חַק
dust
‘dust’ 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 Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
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).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 18 times (86%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 times (10%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 time (5%)
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 H7834 appears — 21 distinct verses across 7 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.
Deuteronomy 1 verse
2 Samuel 1 verse
Job 5 verses
- Job 35:5 שְׁ֝חָקִ֗ים n c mp Look to the heavens, and see. See the skies, which are higher than you.
- Job 36:28 שְׁחָקִ֑ים n c mp Which the skies pour down And drop on man abundantly.
- Job 37:18 לִ/שְׁחָקִ֑ים prep + n c mp Can you, with him, spread out the sky, Which is strong as a cast metal mirror?
- Job 37:21 בַּ/שְּׁחָקִ֑ים prep det + n c mp Now men don't see the light which is bright in the skies, But the wind passes, and clears them.
- Job 38:37 שְׁחָקִ֣ים n c mp Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of the sky,
Psalms 9 verses
- Psalms 18:11 שְׁחָקִֽים n c mp He made darkness his hiding-place, his pavilion around him, Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
- Psalms 36:5 שְׁחָקִֽים n c mp Your loving kindness, Yahweh, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
- Psalms 57:10 שְׁחָקִ֥ים n c mp For your great loving kindness reaches to the heavens, And your truth to the skies.
- Psalms 68:34 בַּ/שְּׁחָקִֽים prep det + n c mp Ascribe strength to God! His excellency is over Israel, His strength is in the skies.
- Psalms 77:17 שְׁחָקִ֑ים n c mp The clouds poured out water. The skies resounded with thunder. Your arrows also flashed around.
- Psalms 78:23 שְׁחָקִ֣ים n c mp Yet he commanded the skies above, And opened the doors of heaven.
- Psalms 89:6 בַ֭/שַּׁחַק prep det + n c ms For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the heavenly beings is like Yahweh,
- Psalms 89:37 בַּ֝/שַּׁ֗חַק prep det + n c ms It will be established forever like the moon, The faithful witness in the sky." Selah.
- Psalms 108:4 שְׁחָקִ֥ים n c mp For your loving kindness is great above the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Proverbs 2 verses
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 40:15 וּ/כְ/שַׁ֥חַק conj + prep + n c ms cs Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are accounted as the small dust of the balance: Behold, he takes up the isles as a very little thing.
- Isaiah 45:8 וּ/שְׁחָקִ֖ים conj + n c mp Distil, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, that it may bring forth salvation, and let it cause righteousness to spring up together; I, Yahweh, have created it.
Jeremiah 1 verse
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.
שחק — transliterated shachaq — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “dust.” Its earliest occurrence is Deuteronomy 33:26. Spanning 21 verses in 7 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Psalms (43% of all occurrences). BDB distinguishes 3 senses for it. See the sense tree, 21-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7834 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 →
- 21
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 21 distinct verses.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 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 21 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 21 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 16 verses · 76%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 19%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 5%
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: Clouds 7×, Skies 4×, Heaven 2×
- American Standard Version: Skies 12×, Reacheth unto the skies 2×, Sky 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Clouds 11×, Skies 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Clouds 11×, Skies 3×, Sky 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7834 across 21 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 H7834 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H7834 across 19 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7834 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 3 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- dust, cloud
- fine dust
- (thin) cloud
Word origin
שַׁ֫חַק n.m. dust, cloud (as fine, thin)
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שחק (shâchaq) (H7833) — to pulverize.
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.
שָׂחַק
- to be bright; to laugh, jest, play. Tosef. B. Kam. II, 2 ס׳ בין הבקר וכ׳ ed. Zuck. (Var. צחבין, צהבין, read: צחק בין) if he (the ox) sported among the herd three times (doing no harm). Deut. R. s. 3, end ראה … שׂוֹחַקַת לעבד the king saw her smile at one of his servants. Y. Kidd. III, 63ᵈ מימי לא ש׳ וכ׳ never did a person have his sport with me, except this man. Tanḥ. Naso 5 באותו שבפנים שָׂחַקְתָּ אבל … לִשְׂחוֹק thou didst fool him (the watchman) that was inside, but thou canst not fool me. Der. Er. Zuṭṭa ch. V ולא בוכה בין השׂוֹחֲקִים ולא שׂוֹחֵק וכ׳ nor should one weep among those who laugh, nor laugh among those who weep; a. fr.—Trnsf. (of fingers) to be spread, opp. עצב. Succ. 7ᵃ טפח שוחק (Ms. M. a. Ar. ס׳); Erub. 3ᵇ שׂוֹחֲקוֹת, v. אַמָּה; a. e.
- same. Tanḥ. l. c. באישך את מְשַׂחֶקֶת וכ׳ thou canst fool thy husband, but thou canst not fool me. Ib. ואני יושב ומְשַׂחֵק על וכ׳ but I sit laughing at my creatures. Tosef. Keth. IX, 2 מְסַחֵק הוא בה ed. Zuck. (Var. מְצַ׳) he may laugh at her (and take the sham sale seriously); (Keth. 79ᵃ רצה מצחק), v. פִּיסְטִין. Tanḥ. Noah 5 והיו משחקין ממנו they laughed at him (Noah). Ber. 7ᵇ, a. e. השעה משחקת לו the hour smiles on him, i.e. he is in luck; a. fr.
- to cause to laugh, lead to sport. Gen. R. s. 22 אם בא … להַשְׂחִיקְךָ שמחהו וכ׳ if thy inclination comes to incite thee to merriment, rejoice it with words of the Law; Yalk. Is. 296.
שַׂחַק
- , v. שְׂחוֹק
שָׁחַק
- (b. h.) to rub, grind, pound. Midr. Till. to Ps. XVIII ולמה … שחקים שהן שׁוֹחֲקִין אלו באלו why are the clouds named sh’ḥaḳim? Because they rub against one another. Gen. R. s. 13, a. e., v. שַׁחַק II. Bets. II, 8 שוחקין את הפלפלין וכ׳ you may grind pepper on the pepper-mill (on the Holy Day). Y. Ber. VI, 10ᵃ top שְׁחָקָן וכ׳ if he mashed them (the turnips), he must say the benediction &c., opp. אם בעיינן הן if they are in their natural shape; a. fr.—[Yalk. Cant. 988 שחק, v. שָׁחַץ.]—Part. pass. שָׁחוּק; f. שְׁחוּקָה; pl. שְׁחוּקִים, שְׁחוּקִין; שְׁחוּקוֹת a) ground, pounded, mashed. Y. Ber. l. c. ויין לאו ש׳ הוא is wine not a product gained by pounding?; ib. ופת לאו ש׳ היא is not bread a product &c.?; ib. שאר … אע"פ שש׳ הן וכ׳ all other things, although produced by pounding (like olive-oil &c.) are ritually treated as if in their natural state; a. e.—b) (cmp. שָׁחַף) lean, meagre. Y. Dem. II, beg. 22ᵇ שחוקה היא (R. S. to Dem. II, 1 שְׁחִיקָא ch.) the fig of Bozrah is stunted.
- 1. same; same; part. pass. מְשׁוּחָק; pl. מְשׁוּחָקִים, מְשׁוּחָקִין rubbed, worn-out, threadbare. Tosef. Men. I, 8; Zeb. 18ᵃ, v. רָשַׁל; ib. 18ᵇ; a. e.
- 2. to curse the memory of a person, v. next w.
- to be ground. Ab. d’R. N. ch. I נִשְׁחֲקוּ עצמותיו his bones were ground, i.e. his memory is cursed, v. next w.
שְׁחַק
- Targ. O. Ex. XXX, 36.—Y. Sabb. VII, 10ᵃ bot. ההן דש׳ תומא he that grinds garlic. Ib. 10ᵇ bot. B. Bath. 146ᵃ שַׁחְקֵי, v. מַרְגְּנִיתָא; a. fr.—Midr. Sam. ch. I, v. infra.—Part. pass. שְׁחִיק.—ש׳ טמיא, v. טַמְיָא; (in Hebr. dict.) ש׳ עצמות. Gen. R. s. 49, beg.; a. e.—Y. Sabb. VI, 8ᵃ top הוות רגליה שחקה (read: שְׁחִיקָא) his foot was sore from rubbing.—Y. Dem. II, beg. 22ᵇ שחיקא (R. S. to Dem. II, 1), v. שָׁחַק
- to mention the name of a dead person with the imprecation שחיק טמיא (his bones be ground), to curse. Lev. R. s. 32, end מדכרין ומְשַׁחְקִין there are those whose names are mentioned with a curse, opp. ומניחין, v. נוּחַ h.; Yalk. Ex. 411 (Hebr.) מזכירין ומְשַׁחֲקִים; Tanḥ. Vayaḳhel 4; Ex. R. s. 48 (mixed dict.) מדכרין ומשחקים; Midr. Sam. ch. I ושָׁחְקִין (Pe.).
שַׁחַק I
- (preced.), pl. שְחָקִים, שְׁחָקִין worn garments, thin clothes. Sifra Thazr., Neg., Par. 4, ch. XV בקרחתו אלו הש׳ ‘in its baldness’ (Lev. XIII, 55), that means old clothes (whose nap is worn off). Keth. V, 8 אין נותנין לה … ולא ש׳ וכ׳ we must not give her new garments for summer and worn-out (thin) garments for winter; ib. והש׳ שלה and the discarded garments remain hers; v. בְּלָאוֹת. Zeb. 18ᵇ; a. e. e.g. Leviticus 13:55
שַׁחַק II
- [dust,]; pl. שְׁחָקִים clouds, heaven, sh’ḥaḳim, name of one of the seven heavens. Ḥag. 12ᵇ ש׳ שבו רחיים וכ׳ it is named sh’ḥaḳim, for in it stands a mill and grinds manna for the righteous. Gen. R. s. 13 למה … ש׳ שהן שוחקין וכ׳ why are they (the clouds) called sh’ḥaḳim? Because they grind the water … like a stomach (grinding the food); Tanḥ. Mick. 1; Koh. R. to I, 7. Ib. איכן … בש׳, v. נָזַל. Midr. Till. to Ps. XVIII, v. שָׁחַק; a. e.
שַׁחַק
- Targ. Ps. LXXXIX, 38.—Pl. שְׁחָקיָּא, שְׁחָקִין, שְׁחָקֵי. Ib. 7 (ed. Wil. שַׁחֲקֵי). Ib. LXXVII, 18. Targ. Job XXXVI, 28; 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 13 distinct written forms H7834 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| שְׁחָקִֽים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Deuteronomy 33:26 | 5 |
| שְׁחָקִ֣ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Job 38:37 | 3 |
| שְׁחָקִ֑ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Job 36:28 | 2 |
| שְׁחָקִ֥ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Psalms 57:10 | 2 |
| בַ֭/שַּׁחַק | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 89:6 | 1 |
| בַּ/שְּׁחָקִ֑ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Job 37:21 | 1 |
| בַּ/שְּׁחָקִֽים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Psalms 68:34 | 1 |
| בַּ֝/שַּׁ֗חַק | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 89:37 | 1 |
| וּ/כְ/שַׁ֥חַק | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Isaiah 40:15 | 1 |
| וּ/שְׁחָקִ֖ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Isaiah 45:8 | 1 |
| וּ֝/שְׁחָקִ֗ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Proverbs 3:20 | 1 |
| לִ/שְׁחָקִ֑ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Job 37:18 | 1 |
| שְׁ֝חָקִ֗ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Job 35:5 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 19 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 21 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.
