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 in the Book of 2 Samuel — 1 distinct verse. 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
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.
