שַׁלִּיט
ruler
‘ruler’ is one of 4 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
Part of speech
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 7 times (70%)
- Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (20%)
- Particle, Definite Article 1 time (10%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 10 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H7990 appears — 10 distinct verses across 2 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.
Ezra 2 verses
- Ezra 4:20 וְ/שַׁ֨לִּיטִ֔ין conj + Adjective Adjective mp There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem, who have ruled over all [the country] beyond the River; and tribute, custom, and toll, was paid to them.
- Ezra 7:24 שַׁלִּ֖יט adj Adjective ms Also we inform you, that touching any of the priests and Levites, the singers, porters, Nethinim, or servants of this house of God, it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll, on them.
Daniel 8 verses
- Daniel 2:10 וְ/שַׁלִּ֔יט conj + Adjective Adjective ms The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man on the earth who can show the king's matter, because no king, lord, or ruler, has asked such a thing of any magician, or enchanter, or Chaldean.
- Daniel 2:15 שַׁלִּיטָ֣/א adj Adjective ms det + ptcl def.art he answered Arioch the king's captain, Why is the decree so urgent from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.
- Daniel 4:17 שַׁלִּ֨יט adj Adjective ms The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones; to the intent that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whoever he will, and sets up over it the lowest of men.
- Daniel 4:25 שַׁלִּ֤יט adj Adjective ms that you shall be driven from men, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field, and you shall be made to eat grass as oxen, and shall be wet with the dew of the sky, and seven times shall pass over you; until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whoever he will.
- Daniel 4:26 שַׁלִּטִ֖ן adj Adjective mp Whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree; your kingdom shall be sure to you, after that you shall have known that the heavens do rule.
- Daniel 4:32 שַׁלִּ֤יט adj Adjective ms and you shall be driven from men; and they dwelling shall be with the animals of the field; you shall be made to eat grass as oxen; and seven times shall pass over you; until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whoever he will.
- Daniel 5:21 שַׁלִּ֞יט adj Adjective ms and he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the animals', and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys; he was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky; until he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and that he sets up over it whoever he will.
- Daniel 5:29 שַׁלִּ֛יט adj Adjective ms Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with purple, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
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.
שליט (shallîyṭ) is a Hebrew adjective most often rendered “ruler.” Daniel dominates its distribution — 8 of 10 verses. Spanning 10 verses in 2 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Ezra 4:20. Not a single-sense word: explore its full sense range. 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 H7990 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,342
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,342 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 10 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 10 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 10 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: Ruleth 3×, Ruler 2×
- American Standard Version: Ruleth 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Rules 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Is ruler 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7990 across 10 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7990 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H7990 across 9 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7990 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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
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.
- 1. having mastery: אֵין אָדָם שׁ׳ בָּרוּחַ Ec 8:8; elsewhere as subst. הַשּׁ׳ the ruler 10:5, so (c. עַל־הָאָרֶץ) Gn 42:6 (prob. late substitution for original word of E); pl. as subst. שַׁלִּיטִים Ec 7:19 (specif. of Alex.’s successors PerlesAnal. 42). e.g. Ecclesiastes 8:8
- 2. domineering, imperious, fs. (Köii 1. 201) אִשָּׁה זוֹנָה שַׁלָּ֑טֶת Ez 16:30 (Jerusalem personified). e.g. Ezekiel 16:30
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
adj. having mastery, domineering;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שליט (shallîyṭ) (H7989) — ruler.
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.
שַׁלִּיט
- having control, ruler. Y. Sabb. III, beg. 5ᶜ, v. שָׁלַט. Gen. R. s. 3 שני … אחד ש׳ ביום וכ׳ two commanders, one being on duty by day, and one by night. M. Kat. 18ᵃ, a. fr. מלפני הש׳, v. שְׁגָגָה; a. e.—Pl. שַׁלִּיטִים, שַׁלִּיטִין. Num. R. s. 1412 כנגד עשרה ש׳ שבאדם corresponding to the ten rulers in man (organs of the body regulating vitality, v. Koh. R. to VII, 19).—Fem. שַׁלִּיטָה. Yalk. Ex. 287 אני שליט בקנאה ואין הקנאה ש׳ בי I (the Lord) control jealousy, but jealousy does not control me; ואין התנומה ש׳ בי but slumber has no power over me; (Mekh. Yithro, Baḥod., s. 6 שׁוֹלֶטֶת).
שַׁלִּיט ²
- Targ. Y. Gen. XXVII, 29. Targ. Koh. V, 1; a. e.—Pl. שַׁלִּיטִין, שַׁלִּיטֵי. Targ. Y. I Gen. XLIX, 10. Targ. Prov. XXIII, 1. Ib. VIII, 15 וש׳ אנא וכ׳ (Ms. ושליטיינא, corr. acc.) and rulers do I anoint in righteousness.—Fem. שַׁלִּיטָא. Targ. II Esth. I, 2 (3) ed. Lag. (oth. ed. שַׁלִּיטְיָא; ed. Vien. טַיָא …, corr. acc.).
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 9 distinct written forms H7990 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| שַׁלִּ֤יט | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 4:25 | 2 |
| וְ/שַׁ֨לִּיטִ֔ין | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Ezra 4:20 | 1 |
| וְ/שַׁלִּ֔יט | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 2:10 | 1 |
| שַׁלִּ֖יט | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezra 7:24 | 1 |
| שַׁלִּ֛יט | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 5:29 | 1 |
| שַׁלִּ֞יט | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 5:21 | 1 |
| שַׁלִּ֨יט | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 4:17 | 1 |
| שַׁלִּטִ֖ן | Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Daniel 4:26 | 1 |
| שַׁלִּיטָ֣/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 2:15 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 7 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 10 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.
