שָׁכַר
to be drunk
‘to be drunk’ is one of 5 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”).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem. Here: ‘make drunken’
- Hithpael
- The reflexive or reciprocal stem (the subject acts on itself). Here: ‘earn wages’
Form
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- 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”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- 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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
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.
4 distinct verses where H7937 appears in the Piel stem, across 4 books. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
2 Samuel 1 verse
Isaiah 1 verse
Jeremiah 1 verse
Habakkuk 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.
At its core, שכר (shâkar) means “to be drunk.” As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 5 stems (Qal, Niphal, and more). Spanning 19 verses in 11 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Jeremiah (26% of all occurrences). It first appears in Genesis 9:21. Dig into 19-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7937 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.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,563
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,563 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.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 14 verses · 74%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 16%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 11%
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†: Drunken 2×
- American Standard Version†: Drunk 1×, Drunken 1×, Her 1×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Drunk 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Be drunk 2×, Drunk 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7937 across 19† 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7937 across 19† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7937 across 19† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 H7937 across 17† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
7 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. 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 7 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.
שכר I hire (NH id.
Qal
- Pf. 3 ms. שׂ׳ Dt 23:5, ס׳ Ezr 4:5 sf. שְׂכָרוֹ Ne 6:12; 1 s. sf. שְׂכַרְתִּיךָ Gn 30:16; Impf. 3 ms. וַיִּשְׂכֹּר Ju 9:4 +, etc.; Inf. abs. שָׂכֹר Gn 30:16; cstr. לִשְׂכֹּר 1 Ch 19:6; Pt. act. שׂבֵר Pr 26:10(×2), pl. שׂכְרִים 2 Ch 24:12 (Ezr 4:5 v. ii. סבר); pass. שָׂכוּר Ne 6:13;—hire, retainers Ju 9:4 (ב pret.), soldiers, etc. 2 S 10:6 = 1 Ch 19:6, 7; 2 K 7:6; 2 Ch 25:6 (ב pret.), priest Ju 18:4, artificers Is 46:6; 2 Ch 24:12, husband’s favour שָׂכֹר שְׂכַרְתִּיךָ Gn 30:16 (J; ב pret.); Pr 26:10(×2) obscure, v. De Now Toy; for evil purpose Dt 23:5 = Ne 13:2 (עַל against), Ne 6:12, 13. e.g. Deuteronomy 23:5
Niphal
- hire oneself out, Pf. בַּלֶּחֶם נִשְׂכָּ֑רוּ 1 S 2:5. e.g. 1 Samuel 2:5
Hithpael
- earn wages, Pt. הַמִּשְׂתַּכֵּר Hg 1:6 (as subst.), מ׳ v 6 (as vb., + אֶל loc., constr. praegn.). e.g. Haggai 1:6
שכר II be, or become, drunk, drunken (NH id., der. spec. and deriv.
Qal
- Pf. 3 pl. שָֽׁכְרוּ Is 29:9; Impf. 3 ms. וַיִּשְׁכָּ֑ר Gn 9:21, 3 mpl. יִשְׁכָּר֑וּן Is 49:26, etc.; Imv. mpl. שִׁכְרוּ Je 25:27 Ct 5:1; Inf. cstr. לְשָׁכְרָה Hg 1:6; Pt. pass. שְׁכֻרַת Is 51:21 (Ges§ 130 b LagBN 60);—become drunken Gn 9:21 (J), of social drinking 43:34 (J), Ct 5:1, token of plenty Hg 1:6; fig. of nations staggering helplessly under calamity Je 25:27; 51:21 (וְלֹא מִיָּ֑יִן), Na 3:11; of infatuation Is 29:9 (וְלֹא יַיִן), of disgrace La 4:21, self-destruction, כֶּעָסִיס דָּמָם יִשׁ׳ Is 49:26. e.g. Isaiah 29:9
Piel
- make drunken: Impf. 3 ms. sf. וַיְשַׁכְּרֵהוּ 2 S 11:13, lit.; fig. 1 s. (sf. of people) וַאֲשַׁכְּרֵם (read וָ׳) Is 63:6 (subj. י׳) I made them drunk in my wrath (but MSS Ges Hi Ew Che Kit Marti al. וָאֲשַׁבְּרֵם I brake them in pieces); Pt. fs., of Bab., מְשַׁכֶּרֶת כָּל־הָאָרֶץ Je 51:7; cf. Inf. abs. שַׁכֵּר Hb 2:15 (i. e. terrorizing nations; read prob. הַשְׁקֵה וְאַף שׁ׳ We Now). e.g. 2 Samuel 11:13
Hiphil
- id.: Pf. 1 s. וְהִשְׁכַּרְתִּ֫י Je 51:57 (subj. י׳) i.e. make princes helpless, וְהִשְׁכַּרְתִּים v 39; Imv. mpl. sf. הַשְׁכִּירֻהוּ, obj. Moab, i.e. make helpless and disgraced 48:26; Impf. 1 s. אַשְׁכִּיר חִצַּי מִדָּם Dt 32:42.—RubenJQ xi (1899), 446 proposes מַשְׁכִּירוֹת Ho 7:5 for משׁך ידו את. e.g. Jeremiah 51:57
Hithpael
- Impf. 2 fs. תִּשְׁתַּכָּרִין 1 S 1:14 how long wilt thou make thyself drunken [a drunken spectacle]? e.g. 1 Samuel 1:14
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
I. vb. hire (NH id.; Sab. תשכר hire oneself out(?), recompense(?) DHMHofmus. 11; Ethiopic ሥኩር: hired; Arabic شَكَرَ reward, thank, mod. Pal. شكارة hired, of land ploughed by hire, BergheimPEQ 1894, 196; Palm. שכרא perhaps rewarding Lzb375);—
I. vb. be, or become, drunk, drunken (NH id., der. spec. and deriv.; Ecclus 40:18, 20 שכר strong drink; Arabic سَكِرَ be drunken, also be full, سَكَرَ fill; Assyrian šikaru, = שֵׁכָר, šakkûru, drunken, perhaps also vb. šakâru; Ethiopic ሰክረ: Aramaic שִׁכְרָא, ܫܰܟܪܳܐ = שֵׁכָר, especially date-wine (Löw p. 125), cf. ܫܟܰܪ be drunken, usually (der. spec.) defile, deform, etc.; from שֵׁכָר, Egyptian ṯà-k-ï̥ra WMMAs. u. Eur. 102, Gk. σίκερα LewyFremdw. 81);—
— 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.
שָׂכַר
- to hire, engage; to rent. B. Mets. VI, 1 השׂוֹכֵר את וכ׳ if one engages artisans (through an agent). Ib. VIII, 2 שאלה … ושְׂכָרָהּ וכ׳ if he borrowed the cow for half a day, and hired her for half a day. Tosef. ib. IX, 1, sq. השׂוֹכֵר שדה if one rents a field; a. v. fr.—שׂוֹכֵר hirer, employer; tenant. B. Mets. 103ᵃ ש׳ מהימן בשבועה the employer is believed on his oath (that he has paid the wages). Ib. 102ᵇ כוליה לש׳ the whole (rent for the thirteenth month of the leap year) goes to the tenant, i.e. he need not pay extra rent for the intercalated month; a. v. fr.—Esp. שוכר tenant of land for rent payable in money, contrad. to חכיר. Tosef. Dem. VI, 2 ש׳ במעות וכ׳ the sokher pays the rent in cash, the ḥakkir (or ḥokher) in kind; a. fr.—Part. pass. שָׂכוּר; f. שְׂכוּרָה. B. Mets. VIII, 2 if the hirer says, ש׳ מתה it is the hired cow that died; ביום שהיתה ש׳ מתה she died on the day when I used her for hire; בשעה … ש׳ וכ׳ she died at that time of the day when I used her for hire; a. fr.
- 1. to lease, let. B. Bath. 110ᵃ לעולם יַשְׂכִּיר אדם את עצמו וכ׳ a man should hire himself out for &c., v. עֲבוֹרָה. B. Mets. VIII, 7 המַשְׂכִּיר … המשכיר וכ׳ if one lets a house …, the landlord has to furnish &c. Ib. 8 ה׳ לו להדשים … למשכיר if he let the house by the month, … the landlord has the benefit of the intercalated month, v. עָבַר. Pes. 4ᵃ על המ׳ לבדוק the landlord is obliged to search the house for leavened matter; a. fr.
- 2. (denom. of שָׂכָר) to cause to profit, to benefit. Tanḥ. ed. Bub., Vayesheb 13 צריך … משכיר אותו (not משביר) a man must pray for the welfare of him that benefits him.
- (denom. of שָׂכָר) to be rewarded, benefited; to have the advantage. Yeb. 92ᵇ אם כן מצינו חוטא נִשְׂכָּר if this be the law, then he that sinned would be at an advantage; Keth. 11ᵃ, a. e. שלא יהא חוטא נ׳ it is done in order that the sinner should not be at an advantage. Pes. 50ᵇ; Tosef. Yeb. IV, 8, v. זָרִיז; a. fr.
- to profit; to deal in. Tanḥ. l. c. לפי … מִשְׂתַּכֵּר מצאנו וכ׳ because Jacob was benefited by his flock &c. Pesik. R. s. 40 ונִשְׂתַּכַּרְתִּי, v. נָצַח. Pes. l. c. המשתכר בקנים וכ׳ he that deals in reeds and vessels. Ib. 54ᵇ ואין אדם יודע במה משתכר and no man knows which of his enterprises will turn out profitable; Mekh. B’shall., Vayass‘a, s. 5. B. Bath. 91ᵃ אין מִשְׂתַּכְּרִין בא"י וכ׳ in Palestine you must not be a dealer in provisions, as wine &c. (serve as middleman between producer and consumer); Tosef. Ab. Zar. IV (V), 1; a. fr.
שָׂכַר ²
- to fill up, dam, v. סָכר, סְכַר.—Snh. 95ᵃ, v. בִּזָּאי, a. שְׂכוֹר.
שָׂכָר
- wages, profit, reward. Shebu. VIII, 1, a. e. נושא ש׳ he that receives wages (for watching), v. שׁוֹמֵר. Succ. 29ᵇ שְׂכַר שכיר, v. עָשַׁק. B. Mets. 112ᵃ כל הכובש שְׂ׳ וכ׳ he that delays the payment of the hired man’s wages, is considered as if taking his life. Ab. V, 11 יצא שְׂכָרוֹ וכ׳, v. הֶפְסֵד. B. Kam. 116ᵃ, a. e. אין לו אלא שְׂכָרוֹ he can claim only the ordinary laborer’s pay, v. שָׁלֵם II; a. fr.—Esp. divine reward. Erub. 22ᵃ (ref. to Deut. VII, 11) היום לעשותם … למחר לקכל שְׂכָרָם ‘to do them to-day’, and not to do them to-morrow (do not procrastinate); ‘to do them to-day’, and to receive the reward for them tomorrow (expect not immediate reward). Ib. 65ᵃ לא נכרא יין … לשלם ש׳ לרשעים wine has been created for the purpose of comforting (cheering up) mourners and paying reward to the wicked (for what good they may do, in this world); Num. R. s. 104. Ab. II, 16 נאמן … שְׂכַר פעולתך thy employer may be trusted that he will pay thee the wages due for thy work. Ib. ודע שמתן שְׂכָרָם וכ׳ but keep in mind that the reward of the righteous is reserved for the hereafter; a. fr.—בִּשְׂכַר as a reward for, on account of (cmp. זְבוּת). Sot. 11ᵇ בש׳ נשים צדקניות וכ׳ for the sake of the righteous women of that generation were the Israelites redeemed; Ex. R. s. 1. Ḥull. 88ᵇ בש׳ שאמר וכ׳ as a reward for what Abraham our father said (Gen. XVIII, 27) &c. Ex. R. s. 45 בש׳ שלש זכה לשלש on account of three things he (Moses) was granted three things; בש׳ ויסתר וכ׳ on account of ‘he hid his face’ (Ex. III, 6) &c.; a. fr.—[Yalk. Is. 371 שכרן, read: שִׂבְרָן, v. סֵבֶר.] e.g. Deuteronomy 7:11
שָׁכַר
- (b. h.) to fill, saturate; to drink freely.—Part. pass. שָׁכוּר; f. שְׁכוּרָה. Taan. 22ᵇ לא ש׳ ולא צמאה וכ׳ that the soil be neither soaked nor thirsty, but between the two extremes. Midr. Till. to Ps. XXXV (ref. to Is. LI, 21) וממה את ש׳ מן הצרות וכ׳ and wherefrom art thou drunk? From the troubles, but not from too much wine; a. e. e.g. Isaiah 51:21
- to make drunk, intoxicate. Erub. 64ᵇ דרך … מְשַׁכַּרְתּוֹ walking (after drinking) makes him unsteady, and sleep makes him drunk; Taan. 17ᵇ. Erub. l. c. רביעית … מְשַׁכֵּר one fourth of a Log of Italian wine intoxicates. Cant. R. to I, 4 ועשו … ושִׁכְּרַתּוֹ וכ׳ they made a great feast, and she made him drink more than enough; Yalk. Gen. 15; a. e.
- to be, become intoxicated. Keth. 8ᵇ התחילו … ומִשְׁתַּכְּרִין וכ׳ when they began to drink (at the mourners’ meals) and get intoxicated &c. Snh. 42ᵃ אל יִשְׁתַּכְּרוּ, v. רָז. Esth. R. to III, 9 אכלו ושתו ונִשְׁתַּכְּרוּ וכ׳ they ate and drank, and became drunk, and acted disgracefully. Num. R. s. 108 דברים שלא יִשְׁתַּכֵּר מהם things from which one cannot become intoxicated; a. fr.
שְׁכַר
- to make drunk. Lev. R. s. 12 אשקוניה ושַׁכְּרוּנֵיה וכ׳ they gave him drink, and made him drunk, and carried him out &c.
- to drink freely. Ber. 9ᵃ אִשְׁתַּכּוּר בהלולא וכ׳ they drank freely at the wedding of &c. (and slept beyond the time of prayer).
שֵׁכָר
- preced.) intoxicating drink. Num. R. s. 108 (ref. to Num. VI, 3) והלא יין הוא ש׳ וש׳ וכ׳ are not yayin and shekhar the same?; יין זה חי וש׳ זה מזוג yayin is unmixed wine, and shekhar is mixed wine; a. e.—Esp. beer of dates or barley. Pes. III, 1 ש׳ המדי Median beer, expl. ib. 42ᵇ דרמו ביה מי שערי date beer into which they put a concoction of barley. Ib. 107ᵃ אין מקדשין על הש׳ you must not pronounce the Ḳiddush (קִידּוּשׁ) over beer; a. fr. e.g. Numbers 6:3
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 19 distinct written forms H7937 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 H7937, 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 15 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
- Genesis 9:21
- Deuteronomy 32:42
- 1 Samuel 1:14
- 2 Samuel 11:13
- Song of Solomon 5:1
- Isaiah 29:9
- Jeremiah 51:7
- Lamentations 4:21
- Nahum 3:11
- Habakkuk 2:15
- Haggai 1:6
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.
