שֶׁ֫לֶג
snow
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
- Singular
- One.
19 distinct verses where H7950 appears in the Absolute state, across 10 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.
Exodus 1 verse
Numbers 1 verse
2 Samuel 1 verse
2 Kings 1 verse
1 Chronicles 1 verse
Job 5 verses
- Job 6:16 שָֽׁלֶג n c ms Which are black by reason of the ice, in which the snow hides itself:
- Job 9:30 שָׁ֑לֶג n c ms If I wash myself with snow, And cleanse my hands with lye,
- Job 24:19 שֶׁ֗לֶג n c ms Drought and heat consume the snow waters; So does Sheol those who have sinned.
- Job 37:6 לַ/שֶּׁ֨לַג prep det + n c ms For he says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth;' Likewise to the shower of rain, And to the showers of his mighty rain.
- Job 38:22 שָׁ֑לֶג n c ms Have you entered the treasuries of the snow, Or have you seen the treasures of the hail,
Psalms 3 verses
- Psalms 51:7 וּ/מִ/שֶּׁ֥לֶג conj + prep + n c ms Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
- Psalms 147:16 שֶׁ֣לֶג n c ms He gives snow like wool, And scatters frost like ashes.
- Psalms 148:8 שֶׁ֣לֶג n c ms Lightning and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, fulfilling his word;
Proverbs 3 verses
- Proverbs 25:13 שֶׁ֨לֶג n c ms As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, So is a faithful messenger to those who send him; For he refreshes the soul of his masters.
- Proverbs 26:1 כַּ/שֶּׁ֤לֶג prep det + n c ms Like snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, So honor is not fitting for a fool.
- Proverbs 31:21 מִ/שָּׁ֑לֶג prep + n c ms She is not afraid of the snow for her household; For all her household are clothed with scarlet.
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 1:18 כַּ/שֶּׁ֣לֶג prep det + n c ms "Come now, and let us reason together," says Yahweh: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
- Isaiah 55:10 וְ/הַ/שֶּׁ֜לֶג conj + ptcl def.art + n c ms For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn't return there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
Lamentations 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.
שלג (sheleg) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “snow.” It first appears in Exodus 4:6. Spanning 20 verses in 11 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Job dominates its distribution — 5 of 20 verses. Related forms include שלג and תלג. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7950 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 →
- 20
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 20 distinct verses.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,513
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,513 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 20 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 20 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 13 verses · 65%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 25%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 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: Snow 13×, Than snow 2×, White as snow 2×
- American Standard Version: Snow 12×, White as snow 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Snow 11×, Snowy 2×, Than snow 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Snow 12×, Like snow 3×, Like the snow 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7950 across 20 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7950 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 H7950 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 H7950 across 22 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.
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense 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.
- snow
Word origin
n.m.Is 55:10 snow;—abs. שׁ׳ Is 1:18 +, שָׁ֑לֶג Ex 4:6 +; cstr. שֶׁ֫לֶג Je 18:14;—snow, 2 S 23:20 (יוֹם הַשּׁ׳) = 1 Ch 11:22, Jb 6:16; 37:6 (‖ גֶּשֶׁם מָטָר), ψ 147:16; 148:8 (+ אֵשׁ, בָּרָד, קִיטוֹר); מֵימֵי שׁ׳ Jb 24:19, cf. 9:30 Qr (בְּמֵי, בְּמוֹ De Di Bu al., snow as purifying; v. also [מַי]); poet. אֹצְרוֹת שׁ׳ 38:22 (‖ א׳ בָּרָד; symb. of cold Pr 31:21; as moistening, fertilizing Is 55:10 (‖ גֶּשֶׁם); on mountains, fig. of normal habit, שׁ׳ לְבָנוֹן Je 18:14; sim. of whiteness, of leprosy Ex 4:6 (J), Nu 12:10 (E), 2 K 5:27; c. מִן comp., of fair skin La 4:7 (‖ חָלָב); sim. of sins, כַּשּׁ׳ יַלְבִּינוּ Is 1:18, cf. ψ 51:9 (מִן comp.); sim. of refreshment Pr 25:13 (drink cooled by snow, v. reff. in De Toy), of the unfitting כַּשּׁ׳ בַּקַיִץ 26:1 (‖ מָטָר).—On snow in Pal. v. NicolHast. DB snow.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שלג (shâlag) (H7949) — to snow.
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.
שֶׁלֶג
- (b. h.) snow. Nidd. 17ᵃ ש׳ אינו לא אוכל וכ׳ snow belongs neither to the class of solid food nor of liquids (for Levitical law). Y. Ḥag. II, 77ᵃ bot. two paths אחד … של ש׳ one of fire and the other of snow; Ab. d’R. N. ch. XXVIII. Tanḥ. R’eh 13, a. e., v. צַלְמָוֶת; a. fr.—Pl. שְׁלָגִים, שְׁלָגִין. Nidd. l. c. Tosef. Snh. II, 12. Pes. 94ᵇ; 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 15 distinct written forms H7950 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7950, 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.
Derives from
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 19 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 20 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
- Exodus 4:6
- Numbers 12:10
- 2 Samuel 23:20
- 2 Kings 5:27
- 1 Chronicles 11:22
- Job 6:16
- Psalms 51:7
- Proverbs 25:13
- Isaiah 1:18
- Jeremiah 18:14
- Lamentations 4:7
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.
