בּוּז
contempt
‘contempt’ is one of 4 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
- 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 H937 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.
Genesis 1 verse
Job 3 verses
- Job 12:5 בּ֭וּז n c ms In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune, It is ready for them whose foot slips.
- Job 12:21 בּ֭וּז n c ms He pours contempt on princes, And loosens the belt of the strong.
- Job 31:34 וּ/בוּז conj + n c ms cs Because I feared the great multitude, And the contempt of families terrified me, So that I kept silence, and didn't go out of the door--
Psalms 5 verses
- Psalms 31:18 וָ/בֽוּז conj + n c ms Let the lying lips be mute, Which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt.
- Psalms 107:40 בּ֭וּז n c ms He pours contempt on princes, And causes them to wander in a trackless waste.
- Psalms 119:22 וָ/ב֑וּז conj + n c ms Take reproach and contempt away from me, For I have kept your statutes.
- Psalms 123:3 בֽוּז n c ms Have mercy on us, Yahweh, have mercy on us, For we have endured much contempt.
- Psalms 123:4 הַ֝/בּ֗וּז ptcl def.art + n c ms Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scoffing of those who are at ease, With the contempt of the proud.
Proverbs 2 verses
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.
בוז (bûwz) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “contempt.” Not a single-sense word: explore its full sense range. It turns up in 11 verses across 4 books, an uncommon footprint. It concentrates in Psalms, which alone accounts for 45% of its uses. Scripture first uses it in Genesis 38:23. 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 H937 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.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 10 verses · 91%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 9%
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†: Contempt 6×
- American Standard Version†: Contempt 8×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Contempt 7×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Contempt 6×, Contempt of 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H937 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 H937 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H937 across 11† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H937 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 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.
בוז I despise (NH id.)
Qal
- Pf. 3 ms. בַּז Zc 4:10 (Köi. 439); fem. בָּזָ֫ה 2 K 19:21 (GK 72l) Impf. יָבוּז Pr 23:9; 3 fs. וְתָבֻז Pr 30:17; 2 ms. תָּבוּז (juss.) Pr 23:22; pl. יָבוּזוּ Pr 6:30 Ct 8:7; יָבֻזוּ Ct 8:1; Inf. abs. בּוֹז Ct 8:7; Pt. Pr 11:12 + 12 times;—despise, shew despite toward (WisdLt & poet.) c. acc. Pr 1:7; c. Inf. + ל Pr 30:17; elsewhere sq. ל + noun, Pr 6:30; 11:12; 13:13; 14:21; 23:9, 22 Ct 8:1, 7(×2) Zc 4:10. e.g. Zechariah 4:10
בוז II
- 1. contempt springing from pride and wickedness Jb 31:34 ψ 123:3, 4 (‖ לַעַג); joined in one adverb. phr. with גאוה ψ 31:19 בְּג׳ וָב׳; springing from prosperity and ease Jb 12:5; = object of contempt Gn 38:23 Pr 12:8; ‖ חֶרְפָּה ψ 119:22 Pr 18:3. e.g. Job 31:34
- 2. judicial, poured out (שׁפך) by God, in judgment Jb 12:21 = ψ 107:40. e.g. Job 12:21
בוז III m. (cf. Assyrian n.pr.loc. Bâzu DlPa 307
- 1. 2nd son of Nahor, Abraham’s brother Gn 22:21 J; = tribe named with דְּדָן & תֵּימָא Je 25:23. e.g. Genesis 22:21
- 2. a Gadite 1 Ch 5:14. e.g. 1 Chronicles 5:14
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. vb. despise (NH id.)—
II. n.m. Pr 18:3 contempt—בּ׳ abs. Gn 38:23 + 9 times; cstr. Jb 31:34;—(WisdLt & poet., except Gn 38:23 J).
III. n.pr.m. (cf. Assyrian n.pr.loc. Bâzu DlPa 307; ZK 1885, 93 f.)
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from בוז (bûwz) (H936) — to despise.
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.
בּוּז
- 1. to tread upon, whence despise. Aboth IV, 3 אל תהי בָז despise not &c.
- 2. to divide; v. בִּזְבֵּז.
בּוּז ²
- 1. to plunder, ransack. Targ. Gen. XXXIV, 27; a. fr.—Esth. R. to I, 10 (play on בזתא ibid.) בוז ביתיה plunder his house.
- 2. to tread. Ib. (play on בגתא ואבגתא ibid. as if from בג, cmp. בגד) בוז ובזבז tread and shatter (v. Targ. Esth. a. l.; cmp. בָּזוֹזָא). [Most of the forms may be derived fr. בזז.]
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 9 distinct written forms H937 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| בּ֭וּז | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Job 12:5 | 3 |
| בּ֑וּז | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 18:3 | 1 |
| בֽוּז | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 123:3 | 1 |
| הַ֝/בּ֗וּז | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 123:4 | 1 |
| וָ/ב֑וּז | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 119:22 | 1 |
| וָ/בֽוּז | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 31:18 | 1 |
| וּ/בוּז | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Job 31:34 | 1 |
| לָ/ב֑וּז | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Genesis 38:23 | 1 |
| לָ/בֽוּז | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 12:8 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H937, 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
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 → 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 8 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.
