שַׁמּוּעַ
Shammua
BDB lists 5 entries for ‘Shammua’ 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
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H8051 appears — 5 distinct verses across 4 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.
Numbers 1 verse
2 Samuel 1 verse
1 Chronicles 1 verse
Nehemiah 2 verses
- Nehemiah 11:17 שַׁמּ֔וּעַ n Proper and Mattaniah the son of Mica, the son of Zabdi, the son of Asaph, who was the chief to begin the thanksgiving in prayer, and Bakbukiah, the second among his brothers; and Abda the son of Shammua, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun.
- Nehemiah 12:18 שַׁמּ֔וּעַ n Proper of Bilgah, Shammua; of Shemaiah, Jehonathan;
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.
The Hebrew name שמוע centers on the idea of “Shammua.” The Hebrew Bible uses it only 5 verses. The word gravitates to Nehemiah (40%), then Numbers and 2 Samuel. First canonically at Numbers 13:4, it enters the text early. Dig into 5-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8051 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 →
- 5
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 5 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,337
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,337 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 5 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 5 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 60%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 20%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 20%
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: Shammua 5×
- American Standard Version: Shammua 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Shammua 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Shammua 5×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8051 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8051 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H8051 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8051 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 3 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. son of David 2 S 5:14 = 1 Ch 14:4, Σαμμους[ε], Σαμαα (= שִׁמְעָא 2). e.g. 2 Samuel 5:14
- 2. Reubenite, Nu 13:4, Σαμουηλ, Σαλαμιηλ, etc. e.g. Numbers 13:4
- 3. Levite, Ne 11:17 (= שְׁמַעְיָה 1 Ch 9:16), Σαμουει, etc.; 12:18 (? same person), 𝔊L Σαμουε. e.g. Nehemiah 11:17
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
Derived from שמם (shâmêm) (H8074) — to be desolate.
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.
שִׁמּוּעַ
- , v. שִׁימּוּעַ
שַׁמּוּעַ
- (b. h.) pr. n. m. Shammua, father of R. Eleazar. Yeb. 62ᵇ. Erub. 53ᵃ; a. fr.
שָׁמוּעַ
- (שָׁמַע) = מִשְׁמָע, sense, understanding. Y. Snh. X, 29ᵇ bot. (ref. to Ps. LX, 9) מנשה כשְׁמוּעוֹ Manasseh is to be taken in its ordinary sense (as referring to king Manasseh; (Num. R. s. 14 beg. כמשמעו). Y. Yoma II, end, 40ᵃ כל ששמועו מרובה ושמועו וכ׳ wherever a Biblical text may be understood as comprising a larger or a smaller number, you must adopt the smaller number; Sifra M’tsorʿa, Zab., ch. VII, Par. 5 (Tosaf. to Succ. 5ᵇ quotes שמשמעו). e.g. Psalms 60:9
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 3 distinct written forms H8051 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| שַׁמּ֔וּעַ | Noun, Proper | Nehemiah 11:17 | 2 |
| שַׁמּ֣וּעַ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 14:4 | 2 |
| שַׁמּ֖וּעַ | Noun, Proper | Numbers 13:4 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8051, 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
Shares the same root
- משמה mᵉshammâh H4923 devastation
- שמה shammâh H8047 desolation
- שמועה shᵉmûwʻâh H8052 report
- שמם shᵉmam H8075 to be appalled
- שמם shâmêm H8076 desolate
- שממון shimmâmôwn H8078 horror
- שממית sᵉmâmîyth H8079 lizard
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 10 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Shammua). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Heard. (1.) One of the spies sent out by Moses to search the land (Num. 13:4). He represented the tribe of Reuben.
(2.) One of David's sons (1 Chr. 14:4; 3:5, "Shimea;" 2 Sam. 5:14).
(3.) A Levite under Nehemiah (11:17).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(renowned).
+ Reubenite spy, son of Zaccur. (Numbers 13:4) (B.C. 1490.) + Son of David, by his wife Bathsheba. (1 Chronicles 14:4) (B.C. 1045.) + A Levite, the father of Abda. (Nehemiah 11:17) The same as Shemaiah, 6. + The representative of the priestly family of Bilgah or Bilgai, in the days of Joiakim. (Nehemiah 12:18) (B.C. about 500.)
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 3 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 5 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.
