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שָׁטַף

to wash

also: rinse, overflow, engulf fuller range ↓

H7857 Strong's Hebrew
shâṭaph Transliteration
/shaw-taf'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 31 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

שטף — transliterated shâṭaph — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to wash.” Debuting at Leviticus 6:28, it then recurs through the corpus. With 30 verses in 10 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Isaiah (30% of all occurrences). Read the stem: it spans 3 stems, including Qal and Niphal. See the sense tree, 30-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
drown
Modern gloss
to wash
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H7857 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 →

30
distinct verses
The word appears in 30 distinct verses.
10 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 10 of 39 Old Testament books.
Leviticus 6:28
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Leviticus 6:28.
Daniel 11:40
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Daniel 11:40.
#1,120
by frequency
Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,120 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 30 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 3 · 10%
  • Historical 2 · 7%
  • Wisdom 6 · 20%
  • Prophets 19 · 63%

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 30 distinct verses.

  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 16 verses · 53%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 11 verses · 37%
  • Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 10%

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: Shall overflow 5×, Overflowing 4×, Overflow 3×
  • American Standard Version: Overflowing 4×, Shall overflow 4×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Torrents 3×, Like a flood 2×, Overflowing 2×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Overflowing 7×, Overflowed 2×, Shall be rinsed 2×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H7857 across 31 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Shall overflow” 5×
  • “Overflowing” 4×
  • “Overflow” 3×
  • “Shall be an overflowing” 3×

Plus 16 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 H7857 across 31 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Overflowing” 4×
  • “Shall overflow” 4×

Plus 23 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 H7857 across 30 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Torrents” 3×
  • “Like a flood” 2×
  • “Overflowing” 2×
  • “Will be swept away” 2×

Plus 21 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 1 further occurrence.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H7857 across 36 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Overflowing” 7×
  • “Overflowed” 2×
  • “Shall be rinsed” 2×
  • “Will be swept away” 2×
  • “Will overflow” 2×

Plus 21 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 Pual (the passive of Piel).

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 6 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. 3 ms. שׁ׳ Is 8:8 +, etc.; Impf. 3 ms. וַיִּשְׁטֹף 1 K 22:38, etc.; Pt. שׁוֹטֵף Is 10:22 +, pl. שֹׁטְפִים Is 28:2;— e.g. Isaiah 8:8
  • 1. overflow, of river Is 8:8; Je 47:2a (v. נַחַל), Dn 11:10, 40, all fig. of invading army, cf. Is 28:15 (qy. by StaThLZ, Apr. 1894, 235, Du Marti read שׁוֹט שֹׁטֵט), v 18 (v. שׁוֹט), also (sim. of י׳ in judgment) v 2 (מַיִם), 30:28, of judicial destruction, שׁוֹטֵף צְדָקָה Is 10:22; c. acc. of land Je 47:2b, pers. (fig.) Is 43:2 (נְהָרוֹת), ψ 69:3 (שִׁבֹּלֶת), v 16 (שׁ׳ מַיִם), 124:4 (מַיִם), cf. Is 28:17 Ct 8:7; גֶּשֶׁם שׁוֹטֵף flooding rain (of י׳’s judgment) Ez 13:11, 13; 38:22; נַחַל שׁוֹטֵף Is 66:12, sim., in good sense.—Abs. Dn 11:26 v. Niph.—Fig. of dashing, rushing horse, כְּסוּס שׁוֹ׳ בַּמִּלְחָמָה Je 8:6. e.g. Isaiah 8:8
  • 2. flow, run, lit. of נַחַל ψ 78:20 2 Ch 32:4. e.g. Psalms 78:20
  • 3. lit., rinse or wash off, c. acc. of thing washed 1 K 22:38, יָדָיו בַּמָּ֑יִם Lv 15:11 (P); of stain Ez 16:9 (מֵעָלַיִךְ; ‖ רָחַץ); עֲפַר־אָ֑רֶץ Jb 14:19. e.g. 1 Kings 22:38

Niphal

  • Impf. 3 ms. יִשָּׁטֵף בַּמַּיִם Lv 15:12 be rinsed out, off (P; of wooden vessel); 3 mpl. יִשָּֽׁטְפוּ מִלְּפָנָיו Dn 11:22 be swept away (defeated), read prob. יִשָּׁטֵף (for יִשְׁטֹף), also v 26 (cf. Dr). e.g. Leviticus 15:12

Pual

  • Pf. 3 ms. וּמֹרַק וְשֻׁטַּף בַּמָּ֑יִם Lv 6:21 (P) it shall be scoured and rinsed. e.g. Leviticus 6:21

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. overflow, rinse or wash off (NH id., so J.Aram. שְׁטַף; Assyrian šaṭâpu, overflow, Arabic سطف id., Cuche);—

— 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

Part of speech: Verb TWOT: 2373


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.

שָׁטַף

  • 1. to wash, rinse. Zeb. XI, 6 (94ᵇ) ושׁוֹטְפוֹ, v. מָרַק; Tosef. ib. X, 13 ושׁוֹטְפָן. Tosef. Ḥull. X, 4 השׁוֹטֵף רחיליו חייב וכ׳ if one washes his lambs (in place of clipping), he is bound to give the priest’s share of the wool (that they shed); Ḥull. 137ᵃ; a. fr.—Part. pass. שָׁטוּף. Sabb. 99ᵃ (ref. to Ex. XXXV, 26) ש׳ בעזים וטווו בעזים Ms. M. (ed. מן העזים) the hair was washed on the goats and spun on the goats; ib. 74ᵇ; Yalk. Ex. 370. e.g. Exodus 35:26
  • 2. to flood, carry off, drown. B. Mets. VIII, 5 ש׳ נהר זיתיו וכ׳ if a stream carried off one’s olive-trees and deposited them in a neighbor’s field. B. Kam. X, 4 (115ᵇ) ש׳ נהר חמורו וכ׳ (Bab. ed. נחל) if a stream (ravine) carried off his own and his neighbor’s ass …, and he let go his own and saved his neighbor’s. Ib. 5 (117ᵇ) שְׁטָפָהּ נהר if the river washed it (the unlawfully taken field) away. Yoma 78ᵃ נחל שׁוֹטֵף a swiftly running brook. Y. Shek. I, 46ᵃ ירד שֶׁטֶף … ושְׁטָפוֹ a rain shower came down and washed it (the mark on the grave) off. Y. B. Mets. VIII, end, 11ᵈ בששְׁטָפָן (not בששטן), v. גּוּשׁ. Ex. R. s. 24 נתמלא … ובקש לשׁוֹטְפָן the genius of the sea became wroth against them, and wanted to drown them. Num. R. s. 199 ויצאו מים רבים ושָׁטְפוּ כל וכ׳ many waters came forth, and flooded all those who murmured; Midr. Till. to Ps. LXXVIII, 20 (corr. acc.); a. fr.—V. שָׁטוּף.
    • same. Taan. 6ᵃ ומַשְׁטִיף את הזרעים (Ms. M. ששׁוֹטֵף, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) it (the heavy rain) washes the seeds away; Yalk. Joel 535 ומְשַׁטֵּף (Pi.).—Part. pass. מוּשְׁטָף; pl. מוּשְׁטָפִים carried off, floating. Ex. R. l. c. לפי שראו … מ׳ על פני המים because they saw the bodies … floating on the water.
    • , Nithpa. נִשְׁתַּטֵּף
    • 1. to be washed, showered upon; to take a shower bath. Sabb. 40ᵃ ויוצא ומִשְׁתַּטַּף וכ׳ and goes out (of the steam-room), and takes a shower bath in the outer room. Ib.ᵇ ובלבד שלא יִשְׁתַּטֵּף וכ׳ but he must not have a cold shower bath and then warm himself &c. Tosef. ib. III (IV), 4; a. fr.
    • 2. to be swept away, drowned. Sifré Deut. 307 מה ראו … שנִשְׁטְפוּ במים why were the men of the flood drowned in water?; Yalk. ib. 942 שיִשָּׁטְפוּ; Sifré l. c. מה … להִשְׁתַּטֵּף באש וכ׳ why were the men of Sodom … swept away by fire and sulphur?; Yalk. l. c. להִשָּׁטֵף; a. e.—Trnsf. to be carried away by passion. Num. R. s. 917; Sifré Num. 12 הרבה קידמוך ונִשְׁטְפוּ many women before thee have been carried away (into infidelity).

שְׁטֵף

  • 1. to wash, rinse. Targ. I Kings XXII, 38. Targ. II Sam. XI, 8; a. e.—Tam. 27ᵇ שְׁטוֹף ושתי שטוף ואחית rinse (the cup) and drink, rinse, and set it down; a. e.
  • 2. to overflow, flood, wash away. Targ. Ps. LXXVIII, 20 ישטפון מיא Ms. (omitted in ed.). Targ. Is. XXXIII, 21. Targ. Y. II, Num. XXI, 16. Targ. Ps. CXXIV, 4; a. e.—Naz. 32ᵇ שַׁטְפוּהוּ ובנן וכ׳ the Rabbis carried R. El. away, and made him stand on their principle, i.e. made him give up his opinion and adopt theirs. Succ. 53ᵃ למִשְׁטְפָא וכ׳, v. קְפֵי; a. e.
    • to wash. Y. Ber. VIII, 12ᵃ bot. ולא מְשַׁטֵּף ידוי וכ׳ and did not wash his hands up to the joints.

שֶׁטֶף

  • 1. flood, shower. Y. Shek. I, 46ᵃ, v. שָׁטַף. Gen. R. s. 73 ש׳ של גשמים a flood caused by rains (brought the rams from Laban’s fold to Jacob’s); Yalk. ib. 130; a. e.—Trnsf. passion, anger. Lev. R. s. 24, beg. בזמן שהוא נותן … שיש ש׳ בדינו when he orders execution (punishment), none praise him, for they know that there is passion in his judgment; Yalk. Ps. 843; Y. Ber. IX, 14ᵇ
  • 2. washing, rinsing; כלי ש׳ a vessel which requires only rinsing in order to be restored to Levitical cleanness. Ḥull. 25ᵃ; Zeb. 3ᵇ; a. e.
  • 3. wool that is gained by washing. Sifré Deut. 166 (ref. to Deut. XVIII, 4) ראשית גז ולא ראשית הש׳ the first of the wool that is cut, but not the first of the wool that comes out by washing.—4) ש׳ של עזים goat-skin made hairless by washing. Cant. R. to IV, 11; Gen. R. s. 65; Yalk. ib. 115 אין לך … מהש׳ וכ׳ there is no smell more offensive than that of washed goat-skins. e.g. Deuteronomy 18:4
  • 5. hair that is fallen out, bald pate. Koh. R. to I, 8 (in enigmatic speech) שִׁיטְפִי מאלל (not שיטפו) my hair is going.

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 29 distinct written forms H7857 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
שָׁטַ֣ף Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Isaiah 8:8 2
שׁוֹטֵף֙ Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Isaiah 28:18 2
הַ/שּׁוֹטֵ֥ף Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 Chronicles 32:4 1
וְ/יִשְׁטְפוּ֙ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Jeremiah 47:2 1
וְ/שָׁטַ֣ף Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 11:10 1
וְ/שָׁטַ֥ף Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 11:40 1
וְ/שֻׁטַּ֖ף Verb, Pual, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Leviticus 6:28 1
וַ/יִּשְׁטֹ֨ף Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 Kings 22:38 1
וָ/אֶשְׁטֹ֥ף Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Ezekiel 16:9 1
יִ֫שְׁטֹ֥פוּ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Psalms 78:20 1
יִשְׁט֑וֹף Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 11:26 1
יִשְׁטְפ֑וּ/הָ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Song of Solomon 8:7 1
יִשְׁטְפ֑וּ/ךָ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Isaiah 43:2 1
יִשְׁטֹֽפוּ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Isaiah 28:17 1
יִשָּׁטְפ֥וּ Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Daniel 11:22 1
יִשָּׁטֵ֖ף Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Leviticus 15:12 1
שְׁטָפ֑וּ/נוּ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural Psalms 124:4 1
שְׁטָפָֽתְ/נִי Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Psalms 69:2 1
שֹׁטְפִ֛ים Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute Isaiah 28:2 1
שֹׁטֵף֙ Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 13:13 1
שׁוֹטֵ֔ף Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 47:2 1
שׁוֹטֵ֖ף Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 8:6 1
שׁוֹטֵ֗ף Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 13:11 1
שׁוֹטֵ֛ף Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Isaiah 66:12 1
שׁוֹטֵ֤ף Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Isaiah 28:15 1
שׁוֹטֵ֥ף Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Isaiah 10:22 1
שׁוֹטֵף֩ Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 38:22 1
תִּשְׁטְפֵ֤/נִי Verb, Qal, Jussive, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Psalms 69:15 1
תִּשְׁטֹֽף Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Job 14:19 1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7857, 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 27 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 30 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.

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