שֵׁן
tooth
‘tooth’ is one of 5 main senses 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
- Both
- Attested as both masculine and feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Dual
- Exactly two — for natural pairs and some measures of time.
1 verse where H8127 appears in the Construct state in the Book of Ezekiel. 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.
Ezekiel
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.
At its core, שן (shên) means “tooth.” Not a single-sense word: explore its full sense range. It turns up in 48 verses across 19 books, a moderately common footprint. It first appears in Genesis 49:12. It clusters with שנן, שנינה and שן under a shared root. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8127 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 →
- 48
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 48 distinct verses.
- 19 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 19 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #686
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 686 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 48 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Psalms 8 verses 17%
- Job 7 verses 15%
- Song of Solomon 4 verses 8%
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 48 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 25 verses · 52%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 16 verses · 33%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 7 verses · 15%
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 2 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†: Teeth 28×, Ivory 10×, Tooth 9×
- American Standard Version†: Teeth 25×, Ivory 9×, Tooth 8×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Teeth 27×, Tooth 9×, Ivory 8×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Teeth 23×, Ivory 10×, Tooth 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8127 across 55† 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8127 across 56† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 H8127 across 51† 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 4 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8127 across 60† 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.
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 5 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.
שן I
- 1. tooth:
- a. of man, Ex 21:27(×3) (E), Nu 11:33 (J), Gn 49:12 (poem in J), Am 4:6; Ct 4:2; 6:6, שׁ׳ רֹעָה Pr 25:19, v. II. רעע 2; of lex talionis, שׁ׳ תַּחַת שׁ׳ Ex 21:24 (E), Lv 24:20 (H), שֵׁן בְּשׁ׳ Dt 19:21; irritated by acid Pr 10:26, dulled by it (in proverb of inherited guilt) Je 31:29, 30; Ez 18:2; חָרַק שׁ׳ La 2:16; Jb 16:9 ψ 35:16; 112:10, v. חָרַק; אֶשָּׂא בְשָׂרִי בְשִׁנָּ֑י Jb 13:14 = risk my life (del. עַל־מָה, dittogr.; ‖ נַפְשִׁי אָשִׂים בְּכַפִּי); בְּעוֹר שִׁנָּ֑י 19:20, v. מָלַט Hithp. (other conj. v. Di Bi Bu Du). e.g. Exodus 21:27
- b. of beasts: Dt 32:24, crocodile Jb 41:6, locusts Jo 1:6 (teeth of lions); especially fig. of false prophets Mi 3:5, of foes Zc 9:7, oppressors Jb 29:17, wicked 4:10 ψ 3:8; 58:7; 124:6; of their weapons Pr 30:14 ψ 57:5; of Isr. shattered by י׳ e.g. Deuteronomy 32:24
- c. tooth of a fork, tine, 1 S 2:13 (cf. Dr Sm. 291); of cliff, שֵׁן הַסֶּלַע 14:4(×2), cf. Jb 39:28, הַשֵּׁן 1 S 14:5. e.g. 1 Samuel 2:13
- 2. ivory, of commerce, קַרְנוֹת שֵׁן Ez 27:15 (i.e. tusks?); as material, מִטּוֹת שׁ׳ Am 6:4, כִּסֵּא־שׁ׳ 1 K 10:18 = 2 Ch 9:17, בֵּית הָשּׁ׳ 1 K 22:39, cf. Am 3:15, הֵיכְלֵי שׁ׳ ψ 45:9, also Ez 27:6; Ct 5:14; 7:5. e.g. Ezekiel 27:15
שן II loc. הַשּׁ׳ 1 S 7
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
n.f. 1 S 2:13 (yet m. 1 S 14:5 cf. Dr) tooth, ivory;—שׁ׳ abs. Ex 21:24 +, cstr. v 27 +, שֶׁן־ Dt 32:24; sf. שִׁנּוֹ Ex 21:27; du. שִׁנַּיִם Pr 10:26, cstr. שִׁנֵּי Je 31:29 +; sf. שִׁנֵּיהֶם ψ 124:6, שִׁנֵּימוֹ 58:7, etc.;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שנן (shânan) (H8150) — to sharpen.
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.
שֵׁן
- c. (b. h.;
- 1. tooth, tooth-like projection. Sabb. VI, 5 (64ᵇ) שן תותבת ושן של זהב an inserted (natural) tooth or an (artificial) gold tooth; (Bab. ed. שן תותכת שן וכ׳, Ms. O. ושן, v. Rashi a. l.). Ib. 10, v. שׁוּעָל; a. fr.—Esp. (sub. נזק) the damage done by an animal’s eating. B. Kam. 2ᵇ שלשה … הקרן והשן והרגל three chief damages are mentioned (in the Scriptural text) with reference to the ox: damage by the horn, by the tooth, and by the foot. Ib. תולדה דשן, v. נְשִׁיכָה. Ib. שן יש הנאה וכ׳, v. הֶיזֵּק. Ib. אשן ורגל it refers to damages by the tooth and by the foot; שן ורגל היכא כתיבי where is the damage by the tooth or the foot written (in the Biblical text)? Ib. ובער זו השן ubhiʿer (Ex. XXII, 4) this refers to damage by the tooth; a. fr.—Du. שִׁנַּיִים, שִׁנַּיִם, שִׁי׳. Ḥull. I, 2 בכל … והש׳ you may cut ritually with anything, except … with teeth in the jaw. Ib. ואם החליקו שִׁינֶּיהָ and if the teeth of the saw have been made smooth. Keth. 71ᵇ בין שיניה, v. אֶצְבַּע. Ib. 16ᵃ, v. כֶּרֶס. Kel. XIII, 8 שניטלו שִׁינָּיו (a hackle) whose teeth are broken off. Gen. R. s. 33 חשש רבי את שיניו וכ׳ Rabbi suffered from tooth-ache for thirteen years. Keth. 111ᵇ טוב המלבין ש׳ וכ׳ he who causes his neighbor to show the white of his teeth (who makes him cheerful) does better than he who gives him milk to drink. Ib. א"ת לבן ש׳ אלא לבון ש׳ read not l’ben shinnayim (Gen. XLIX, 12) but libbun shinnayim (whitening of teeth, cheerfulness); a. fr.— any organ of the body resembling teeth, gland.—Du. as ab. Y. Yeb. VI, beg. 7ᵇ בית הש׳ that part of the vagina which has glands; מבין הש׳ ולפנים from the glands and farther inside; Nidd. 41ᵇ. Ḥull. 16ᵇ שיניו נושרות the glands of his rectum will fall off; Sabb. 82ᵃ; a. e. e.g. Exodus 22:4
- 3. cliff, peak. Gen. R. s. 74 כשן הזה של וכ׳ (the stone which Jacob put up was) as large as the peak of Tiberias; Yalk. ib. 130; a. e.
- 4. (sub. של פיל) ivory. Num. R. s. 312 (play on מי יג̇ור̇ … חזק כש̇ן̇ (ג̇ר̇ש̇ון̇ who can abide snow and hail, and cold and heat? He who is as strong as ivory (or marble?); אין שן אלא לשון חזק וכ׳ shen has the meaning of strong (ref. to Cant. V, 14); a. e e.g. Song of Solomon 5:14
- 5. marble. Cant. R. to V, 11; Yalk. ib. 991, v. עֶשֶׁת.
שֵׁן ²
- Targ. O. Deut. XXXII, 24. Targ. Ex. XXI, 24. Targ. I Kings X, 22 (v. פִּילָא I). Ib. 18. Targ. I Sam. XIV, 4; a. fr.—Y. Kil. IX, 32ᵇ bot; האי שִׁינָּךְ וכ׳ how is that tooth of thine?; Y. Keth. XII, 35ᵃ bot.; Gen. R. s. 33. Ib. יהב ידיה על שִׁינֵּיה וכ׳ he put his hand on his (Rabbi’s) tooth, and it was cured.—Gitt. 68ᵇ ומנח להו אש׳ דטורא וכ׳ he puts it (the Shamir) on the peak of a mountain, and the mountain bursts. Snh. 96ᵇ תא אש׳ דטורא (Rashi דטורי) come (to Jerusalem) even if it be necessary to march over the cliffs of mountains (differ. in Rashi); Yalk. Is. 287; a. fr.—ש׳ דדור, שן דור pr. n. pl. the Cliff of Dor (v. Hildesh. Beitr. pp. 4; 10). Y. Shebi. VI, 36ᶜ (not דרור); Tosef. Shebi. IV, 11 שורא דרור (corr. acc.); Sifré Deut. 51 [read:] מדבר שר שן דור; Yalk. ib. 874 (corr. acc.).—Pl. שִׁנִּין, שִׁנַּיָּא, שִׁנֵּי, שִׁי׳. Targ. Am. IV, 6 (not שְׁנִין). Targ. Prov. X, 26.—Targ. Jer. XLIX, 16. Targ. Y. Gen. XLIX, 21 (not שֵׁינֵי); a. fr.—Y. Kil. IX, 32ᵇ תלת … חשש (ב)שִׁינּוֹי suffered from tooth-ache for thirteen years. Ib. חד שִׁינַּיי וכ׳ one of my teeth annoys me; (Y. Keth. l. c. חד שינא).—Sabb. 82ᵃ, v. כַּרְכְּשָׁא; a. fr.
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 42 distinct written forms H8127 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 H8127, 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
Derived from this word
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 6 — 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.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 45 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 48 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
- Genesis 49:12
- Exodus 21:24
- Leviticus 24:20
- Numbers 11:33
- Deuteronomy 19:21
- 1 Samuel 2:13
- 1 Kings 10:18
- 2 Chronicles 9:17
- Job 4:10
- Psalms 3:7
- Proverbs 10:26
- Song of Solomon 4:2
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.
