חָרֵב
cha.rev
to dry
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# חָרֵב (charev): The Hebrew Word for Drying The Hebrew verb חָרֵב (charev) carries the fundamental meaning "to dry," appearing sixteen times throughout the biblical text. This word describes a physical process in which moisture is removed or depleted from something, whether literal or figurative. The lexical data establishes this as a straightforward descriptive term for a natural or observable state of desiccation. The relative frequency of this word—sixteen occurrences—suggests it held moderate importance in biblical Hebrew for describing conditions of drought, depletion, or loss of vitality. The verb likely appeared in contexts ranging from agricultural and meteorological situations (dry land, dried-up wells or rivers) to more abstract applications (diminished resources or strength). Without access to the specific biblical passages in the provided data, the full contextual range cannot be detailed, but the term's presence across multiple texts indicates it served as a standard way to express the concept of drying or becoming dry. As a basic physical descriptor, חָרֵב would have been readily understood by biblical audiences as an observable phenomenon with practical significance in an ancient Near Eastern agricultural society where water availability was crucial to survival and prosperity.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
16 total occurrences across the text
As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up,
Psalms 106:9He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up; so he led them through the depths, as through a desert.
Isaiah 19:5The waters will fail from the sea, and the river will be wasted and become dry.
Isaiah 19:6The rivers will become foul. The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away.
Isaiah 37:25I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.”
Isaiah 44:27who says to the deep, ‘Be dry,’ and ‘I will dry up your rivers;’
Isaiah 50:2Why, when I came, was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it can’t redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a wilderness. Their fish stink because there is no water, and die of thirst.
Isaiah 51:10Isn’t it you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?
Jeremiah 51:36Therefore Yahweh says: “Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.
Hosea 13:15Though he is fruitful among his brothers, an east wind will come, the breath of Yahweh coming up from the wilderness; and his spring will become dry, and his fountain will be dried up. He will plunder the storehouse of treasure.
Nahum 1:4He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan languishes, and Carmel; and the flower of Lebanon languishes.
Genesis 8:13In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
Genesis 8:13In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
Judges 16:7Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.”
Judges 16:8Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green cords which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.
2 Kings 19:24I have dug and drunk strange waters, and I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt with the sole of my feet.”