שָׁמִיר
thorn
also: adamant, flint fuller range ↓
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.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 10 times (91%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 time (9%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 11 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H8068 appears — 11 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.
Isaiah 8 verses
- Isaiah 5:6 שָׁמִ֖יר n c ms I will lay it a wasteland. It won't be pruned nor hoed, But it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it."
- Isaiah 7:23 לַ/שָּׁמִ֥יר prep det + n c ms It will happen in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silver shekels, shall be for briers and thorns.
- Isaiah 7:24 שָׁמִ֥יר n c ms People will go there with arrows and with bow, because all the land will be briers and thorns.
- Isaiah 7:25 שָׁמִ֣יר n c ms All the hills that were cultivated with the hoe, you shall not come there for fear of briers and thorns; but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of sheep."
- Isaiah 9:18 שָׁמִ֥יר n c ms For wickedness burns as the fire; it devours the briers and thorns; yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke.
- Isaiah 10:17 וּ/שְׁמִיר֖/וֹ conj + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms The light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day.
- Isaiah 27:4 שָׁמִ֥יר n c ms Wrath is not in me: would that the briers and thorns were against me in battle! I would march on them, I would burn them together.
- Isaiah 32:13 שָׁמִ֖יר n c ms On the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.
Jeremiah 1 verse
Ezekiel 1 verse
Zechariah 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.
The Hebrew noun שמיר centers on the idea of “thorn.” The word gravitates to Isaiah (73%), then Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It turns up in 11 verses across 4 books, an uncommon footprint. Alongside “thorn” the lexicon also lists “adamant” and “flint” — part of its full sense range. Older and newer Bibles part ways — “briers” in the King James Version, “briar” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. 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 H8068 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 →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,210
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,210 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 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 11 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 3 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†: Briers 6×
- American Standard Version†: Briers 5×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Briers 6×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Briar 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8068 across 11† 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 H8068 across 11† 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 H8068 across 11† 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 H8068 across 11† 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 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 4 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.
שמיר I
- 1. coll. thorns, thorn-bushes, token of waste-land, only Is, + שַׁיִת Is 5:6; 7:23, 24, 25; 27:4; fig. 9:17; 10:17; קוֹץ שׁ׳ 32:13. e.g. Isaiah 5:6
- 2. adamant, as sharp, כְּתוּבָה … בְּצִפֹּרֶן שׁ׳ Je 17:1 (‖ בְּעֵט בַּרְזֶל); as hard, fig. of prophet’s firmness Ez 3:9; Zc 7:12 fig. of hard heart. e.g. Jeremiah 17:1
שמיר II loc.
- 1. in הַר אֶפְרַיִם Ju 10:1, 2, Σαμειρ; A 𝔊L Σαμαρεια. e.g. Judges 10:1
- 2. in (יְהוּדָה) הַר Jos 15:48, Σαμειρ; A 𝔊L Σαφειρ. e.g. Joshua 15:48
שמיר III m. Levite, 1 Ch 24
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. n.m. Ez 3:9 thorn(s), adamant, flint;—abs. שׁ׳ Is 5:6 +; sf. שְׁמִירוֹ 10:17;—
III. n.pr.m. Levite, 1 Ch 24:24 Qr, Σαμηρ, Σεμμηρ (Kt שמור).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שמר (shâmar) (H8104) — to keep.
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.
שָׁמִיר
- [pointed,] thorn; flint, diamond; (in legend) shamir, a worm that cuts stones with its glance. Sot. IX, 12 משחרב … בטל הש׳ with the destruction of the Temple the shamir ceased to exist. Ib. 48ᵇ; Tosef. ib. XV, 1; Y. ib. IX, 24ᵇ; a. e.
שָׁמִיר ²
- 1. flint. Targ. Y. II, Deut. XXXII, 13 (h. text חלמיש). Targ. Ps. CXIV, 8. Targ. Job XXVIII, 9.
- 2. diamond; shamir. Targ. Ez. III, 9. Targ. Zech. VII, 12; a. e.—Gitt. 68ᵃ איכא ש׳ דאייתיה וכ׳ there is the shamir which Moses used for the jewels of the Ephod. Ib.ᵇ בעינא … ש׳ I want to build the Temple, and want the shamir; 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 8 distinct written forms H8068 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| שָׁמִ֥יר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 7:24 | 3 |
| שָׁמִ֖יר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 5:6 | 2 |
| וּ/שְׁמִיר֖/וֹ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Isaiah 10:17 | 1 |
| כְּ/שָׁמִ֛יר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 3:9 | 1 |
| לַ/שָּׁמִ֥יר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 7:23 | 1 |
| שָׁמִ֑יר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 17:1 | 1 |
| שָׁמִ֗יר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Zechariah 7:12 | 1 |
| שָׁמִ֣יר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 7:25 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8068, 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
- אשמרה ʼashmurâh H821 watch
- משמר mishmâr H4929 guard
- שמר shemer H8105 dregs
- שמר shimmur H8107 night watch
- שמרה shomrâh H8108 watch
- שמרה shᵉmurâh H8109 eyelid
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- ישמרי Yishmᵉray H3461 Ishmerai
- שומר Shôwmêr H7763 Shomer
- שמרון Shômᵉrôwn H8111 Samaria
- שמריה Shᵉmaryâh H8114 Shemariah
- שמרת Shimrâth H8119 Shimrath
- שמיר Shâmîyr H8069 Shamir
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 14 — not the complete family. 6 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 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.
