שִׁנְעָר
Shinar
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Shinar’ 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 H8152 appears in the Book of Genesis — 4 distinct verses. 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.
Genesis
- Genesis 10:10 שִׁנְעָֽר n Proper The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
- Genesis 11:2 שִׁנְעָ֖ר n Proper It happened, as they traveled east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they lived there.
- Genesis 14:1 שִׁנְעָ֔ר n Proper It happened in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim,
- Genesis 14:9 שִׁנְעָ֔ר n Proper against Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings against the five.
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.
שנער (Shinʻâr) is a Hebrew name most often rendered “Shinar.” It clusters heavily in Genesis, which alone accounts for 50% of its uses. With 8 verses in 5 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Genesis 10:10. For the data behind this summary, explore 8-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8152 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 8 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 8 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 4 verses · 50%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 38%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 13%
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: Shinar 7×
- American Standard Version: Shinar 7×
- Berean Standard Bible: Shinar 8×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Shinar 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8152 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8152 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H8152 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8152 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- Shinar = "country of two rivers"
- the ancient name for the territory later known as Babylonia or Chaldea
Word origin
n. pr. loc. Shinar = Babylonia (= Bab. Šumêr according to COT Gn 11:1 al., > denied by Hal Rev. Crit. 1883, 44 Jen ZK ii (1885), 419; Egypt; Sangar (WMMAs. u. Eur. 279), TelAm. Šanḫar (Wkl TelAm. 25) identif. with שׁ׳ by Mey Egyptiaca 63; cf., further, PinchesHast DB shinar);—אֶרֶץ שׁ׳ Gn 10:10; 11:2; Zc 5:11; Dn 1:2; מֶלֶךְ־שׁ׳ (Amraphel) Gn 14:1, 9; שׁ׳ alone Is 11:11 (as place of diaspora); אַדֶּרֶת שׁ׳ Jos 7:21; 𝔊 usually Σεν(ν)ααρ; Zc 5:11 (ἐν γῇ) Βαβυλῶνος.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: probably of foreign derivation
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.
נָעַר I
- cmp. next w.) [to be excited, noisy,] esp. (of the ass) to bray. Ber. 3ᵃ. Ib. 56ᵃ (in Chald. dict.) דקאי אאיסדן ונוֹעֵר standing at the head of the bed and braying. B. Kam. 18ᵇ; Kidd. 24ᵇ; a. e.—[Cant. R. to IV, 8 בתחלה הוא נוער, read: נֵעוֹר, v. עוּר.]
נָעַר II
- to shake, stir. Makhsh. I, 4 הנוֹעֵר אגודה וכ׳ he who shakes (the rain off) a bundle of vegetables. Ib. V, 7. Pesik. R. s. 26 לאיוב נָעַרְתִּי מן האשפה וכ׳ I shook Job (making him rise) from the dunghill, and concerning thee (Israel) it is written (Is. LII, 2), shake thyself &c.; a. e. e.g. Isaiah 52:2
- 1. to shake. Pesik. Shek., p. 17ᵃ נַעֲרָהּ קפלה shake it (the garment), fold it; Lev. R. s. 2. B. Mets. II, 8 מצא כסות מְנַעֲרָהּ וכ׳ if one found a garment (and holds it in charge waiting for the owner to claim it), he must shake it once in thirty days. Sabb. 147ᵃ top; a. fr.
- 2. to stir. Ḥull. VIII, 3 נ׳ את הקדרה if he stirred (the meat in) the pot. Y. Ab. Zar. I, 39ᵈ top שמא נ׳ הגוי בקדרה the gentile might have stirred the pot; a. fr.
- 3. to empty; to cause evacuation. Toh. II, 1 מְנָעֶרֶת את הקדרה she may empty (or stir) the dish. Kel. XXVIII, 2 לנָעֵר בו וכ׳ used for (lifting and) emptying the pot. Tosef. Kel. B. Mets. II, 10 שהחנוני מְנָעֵר וכ׳ which the shop-keeper uses when pouring out &c. (or through which he pours for straining), v. יַתִּיךְ; a. e.—נ׳ את הצאן to use means by which to expedite the discharge of excrements of the flock on the spot to be manured (v. דּוּר I, Pi.). Tosef. Shebi. II, 20; M. Kat. 12ᵃ; Y. Shebi. III, 34ᶜ bot. Ib. השוכר … לנַעֲרָהּ he who hires a flock (for manuring) is forbidden to use means &c.; expl. ib. מוליכה ממקום וכ׳ by driving it from place to place.—Part. pass. מְנוֹעָר; f. מְנוֹעֶרֶת; pl. מְנוֹעָרִים, מְנוֹעָרִין: מְנוֹעָרוֹת empty, vacant. Y. Ber. IV, 7ᵇ bot. (play on שִׁנְ֗עָ֗ר̇) שחם מנ׳ מן המצות וכ׳ they (the Babylonians) are vacant of (cannot perform) certain religious observances &c.; Koh. R. to XII, 7; Gen. R. s. 37 שהיא מנ׳ וכ׳ she (Babylonia) is deprived &c. Ḥag. 14ᵃ (play on נערים, Is. III, 4) אלו בני אדם שמנ׳ וכ׳ that means persons empty of good deeds, opp. ממולא; Yalk. Is. 261.—[B. Bath. 74ᵇ ור"י נוער some ed., v. עוּר I.—Ḥull. 51ᵇ ניערה, v. infra.] e.g. Isaiah 3:4
- 1. to be stirred up; to bestir one’s self. B. Bath. 74ᵇ וני׳ ר׳'א and R. El. was stirred up (awoke). Sot. 5ᵃ אין עפרו נ׳ his dust will not be stirred up (for resurrection). Ex. R. s. 1 (play on חלאה ונערה, I Chr. IV, 5) חלתה ונִנְעֲרָה מחליה וכ׳ she (Miriam) was sick, but she bestirred herself (arose) from her sickness, and the Lord restored her to youth. Y. Ber. III, 6ᵈ top (play on מנעריו, Gen. VIII, 21) משעה שהוא נ׳ ויוצא וכ׳ from the moment the embryo bestirs itself to come out into the world; Gen. R. s. 34; Yalk. ib. 61. Ḥull. 51ᵇ ננערה לעמוד וכ׳ Rashi (ed. נִיעֲרָה) if the animal made an effort to get up, although it did not succeed; a. e. e.g. 1 Chronicles 4:5
- 2. (of flax) to be hatcheled. Y. Sabb. II, beg. 4ᶜ (expl. חוסן, ib. II, 1) פשתן שלא ננערה flax which has not yet been hatcheled.
- 3. to be emptied, poured out. Y. Ber. l. c. (play on שנער) ששם נִנְעֲרוּ וכ׳ for into that valley the dead of the generation of the flood were dumped; Gen. R. s. 37; Koh. R. l. c.—Snh. 92ᵃ קשתו נִינְעֶרֶת his bow will be empty (his sexual vitality broken).
- to stir up, to keep awake. Erub. 53ᵇ (play on נערה &c., v. אַהֲרוֹנִית) והִנְעִירָתוֹ and she kept him awake.
- to be emptied; trnsf. to be displaced. Zeb. 116ᵃ (ref. to Cant. IV, 16) תִּתְנַעֵר אומה … ותבא וכ׳ (v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) removed be the (Roman) nation whose sacrifices are slaughtered northward (Lev. I, 11, which is entitled only to burnt-offerings), and let the nation enter &c. e.g. Song of Solomon 4:16
נְעַר
- , to shake, stir.—Part. pass. נְעִיר waking. Targ. Job XXI, 32 (Ms. נָעִיר; ed. Wil. יְעִיר, v. עוּר).
- to shake; to empty. Yalk. Zech. 570; Cant. R. to IV, 8 (ref. to Zech. II, 17) דמְנַעֲרָה וכ׳ (דמְנַעֲרָא), v. גֵּו ch.; Gen. R. s. 75. Sabb. 142ᵃ ולִינַעֲרִינְהוּ נַעוּרֵי let him shake the fruit out of the basket. e.g. Zechariah 2:17
נַעַר
- preced., tender, young; lad. Tanḥ. Ḥayé 1 שיתכבד הזקן בַּנַּ׳ that the old may be honored by the young. Ex. R. s. 1 ילד היה ומנהגו כנ׳ he was a child, but his behavior was like that of a lad; a. fr.—Pl. נְעָרִים. Yoma 75ᵇ לנ׳ לחם וכ׳ the manna was bread to the young, oil to the old &c. Tanḥ. Sh’mini 11 אם נ׳ הם וכ׳ if they (the elders) are young &c., v. קָפַץ. Ib. הבחורים והנ׳ the young men and the lads. Sot. 46ᵇ נ׳ היו ובזבזו וכ׳ they were young men, but behaved contemptibly like children; a. fr.—Fem. נַעֲרָה lass, maid, esp. (law) a girl between twelve and twelve and a half years of age, v. בַּגְרוּת. Esth. R. to V, 1; a. fr.—Keth. III, 8, contrad. to בוגרת a. קטנה. Ib. IV, 1; a. fr.—Pl. נְעָרוֹת, constr. נַעֲרוֹת. Ib. III, 1 (29ᵃ). Esth. R. l. c. שתי נַעֲרוֹתֶיהָ her two maids; a. fr.
שִׁנְעָר
- (b. h.) pr. n. Shinear, a part of Babylonia (v. Schr. KAT2, p. 118). Y. Ber. IV, 7ᵇ bot., a. e. למה נקרא שמה ש׳ why is Babylonia called Shinear?; v. נָעַר II; Zeb. 113ᵇ. Ib. למה … ש׳ שמנערת עשיריה it is called Sh., because it shakes out its rich men (makes them poor); 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 6 distinct written forms H8152 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| שִׁנְעָ֔ר | Noun, Proper | Genesis 14:1 | 2 |
| שִׁנְעָ֖ר | Noun, Proper | Daniel 1:2 | 2 |
| וּ/מִ/שִּׁנְעָר֙ | Noun, Proper | Isaiah 11:11 | 1 |
| שִׁנְעָ֑ר | Noun, Proper | Zechariah 5:11 | 1 |
| שִׁנְעָֽר | Noun, Proper | Genesis 10:10 | 1 |
| שִׁנְעָר֩ | Noun, Proper | Joshua 7:21 | 1 |
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Shinar). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(country of two rivers), the ancient name of the great alluvial tract through which the Tigris and Euphrates pass before reaching the sea--the tract known in later times as Chaldaea or Babylonia. It was a plain country, where brick had to be used for stone and slime for mortar. (Genesis 11:3) Among the cities were Babel (Babylon), Erech or Orech (Orchoe), Calneh or Calno (probably Niffer), and Accad, the site of which is unknown. It may be suspected that Shinar was the name by which the Hebrews originally knew the lower Mesopotamian country where they so long dwelt, and which Abraham brought with him from "Ur of the Chaldees."
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
watch of him that sleeps
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
