סָבַב
sa.vav
to turn: turn
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# סָבַב (Sabav): The Hebrew Word for Turning The Hebrew verb סָבַב (sabav) appears 78 times throughout the biblical text and carries the fundamental meaning of "to turn." This semantic core encompasses the physical action of rotating or changing direction, making it a versatile word for describing movement in space. The verb's primary definition—"to turn"—establishes it as a central term for expressing directional change in Hebrew narrative and descriptive writing. The frequency of this word's occurrence (78 times) suggests it was essential to biblical Hebrew communication, particularly in contexts requiring spatial description. Whether describing the rotation of objects, the movement of people, or the sweeping of actions across a landscape, sabav provided Hebrew speakers with a concise way to convey the concept of turning. Its straightforward definition allows it to function across various narrative and poetic contexts without requiring specialized theological interpretation. The word's significance lies in its linguistic utility rather than specialized symbolic meaning. As a common action verb, sabav helped ancient Hebrew writers convey basic physical realities—people turning to face different directions, armies moving in circles, or objects rotating. Its presence throughout the biblical corpus reflects how fundamental the concept of turning is to human experience and storytelling.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
78 total occurrences across the text — showing 50
They went around in Judah, and gathered the Levites out of all the cities of Judah, and the heads of fathers’ households of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem.
2 Chronicles 29:6For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in Yahweh our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Yahweh, and turned their backs.
2 Chronicles 35:22Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and didn’t listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo.
Ezra 6:22and kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy; because Yahweh had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, to strengthen their hands in the work of God, the God of Israel’s house.
Psalms 7:7Let the congregation of the peoples surround you. Rule over them on high.
Psalms 114:3The sea saw it, and fled. The Jordan was driven back.
Psalms 114:5What was it, you sea, that you fled? You Jordan, that you turned back?
Proverbs 26:14As the door turns on its hinges, so does the sluggard on his bed.
Ecclesiastes 1:6The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north. It turns around continually as it goes, and the wind returns again to its courses.
Ecclesiastes 2:20Therefore I began to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labor in which I had labored under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 7:25I turned around, and my heart sought to know and to search out, and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity, and that foolishness is madness.
Ecclesiastes 12:5yes, they shall be afraid of heights, and terrors will be on the way; and the almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goes to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the streets:
Song of Solomon 2:17Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be like a roe or a young deer on the mountains of Bether.
Isaiah 23:16Take a harp; go about the city, you prostitute that has been forgotten. Make sweet melody. Sing many songs, that you may be remembered.
Isaiah 28:27For the dill are not threshed with a sharp instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned over the cumin; but the dill is beaten out with a stick, and the cumin with a rod.
Isaiah 38:2Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to Yahweh,
Jeremiah 31:39The measuring line will go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and will turn toward Goah.
Ezekiel 1:9Their wings were joined to one another. They didn’t turn when they went. Each one went straight forward.
Ezekiel 1:12Each one went straight forward: where the spirit was to go, they went. They didn’t turn when they went.
Ezekiel 1:17When they went, they went in their four directions. They didn’t turn when they went.
Ezekiel 7:22I will also turn my face from them, and they will profane my secret place. Robbers will enter into it, and profane it.
Ezekiel 10:11When they went, they went in their four directions. They didn’t turn as they went, but to the place where the head looked they followed it. They didn’t turn as they went.
Ezekiel 10:11When they went, they went in their four directions. They didn’t turn as they went, but to the place where the head looked they followed it. They didn’t turn as they went.
Ezekiel 10:16When the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the wheels also didn’t turn from beside them.
Ezekiel 26:2“Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha! She is broken! She who was the gateway of the peoples has been returned to me. I will be replenished, now that she is laid waste;’
Ezekiel 41:7The side rooms were wider on the higher levels, because the walls were narrower at the higher levels. Therefore the width of the house increased upward; and so one went up from the lowest level to the highest through the middle level.
Ezekiel 41:24The doors had two leaves each, two turning leaves: two for the one door, and two leaves for the other.
Ezekiel 42:19He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.
Habakkuk 2:16You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink, and be exposed! The cup of Yahweh’s right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory.
Zechariah 14:10All the land will be made like the Arabah, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; and she will be lifted up, and will dwell in her place, from Benjamin’s gate to the place of the first gate, to the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananel to the king’s wine presses.
Genesis 2:11The name of the first is Pishon: it flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
Genesis 2:13The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush.
Genesis 37:7for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and behold, your sheaves came around, and bowed down to my sheaf.”
Genesis 42:24He turned himself away from them, and wept. Then he returned to them, and spoke to them, and took Simeon from among them, and bound him before their eyes.
Exodus 13:18but God led the people around by the way of the wilderness by the Red Sea; and the children of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt.
Exodus 28:11With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, you shall engrave the two stones, according to the names of the children of Israel. You shall make them to be enclosed in settings of gold.
Numbers 32:38Nebo, and Baal Meon, (their names being changed), and Sibmah. They gave other names to the cities which they built.
Numbers 34:4Your border shall turn about southward of the ascent of Akrabbim, and pass along to Zin; and it shall pass southward of Kadesh Barnea; and it shall go from there to Hazar Addar, and pass along to Azmon.
Numbers 34:5The border shall turn about from Azmon to the brook of Egypt, and it shall end at the sea.
Numbers 36:7So shall no inheritance of the children of Israel move from tribe to tribe; for the children of Israel shall all keep the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.
Numbers 36:9So shall no inheritance move from one tribe to another tribe; for the tribes of the children of Israel shall each keep his own inheritance.’ ”
Joshua 15:3and it went out southward of the ascent of Akrabbim, and passed along to Zin, and went up by the south of Kadesh Barnea, and passed along by Hezron, went up to Addar, and turned toward Karka;
Joshua 16:6The border went out westward at Michmethath on the north. The border turned about eastward to Taanath Shiloh, and passed along it on the east of Janoah.
Joshua 18:14The border extended, and turned around on the west quarter southward, from the mountain that lies before Beth Horon southward; and ended at Kiriath Baal (also called Kiriath Jearim), a city of the children of Judah. This was the west quarter.
Joshua 19:14The border turned around it on the north to Hannathon; and it ended at the valley of Iphtah El;
Judges 18:23As they called to the children of Dan, they turned their faces, and said to Micah, “What ails you, that you come with such a company?”
1 Samuel 5:8They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried over to Gath.” They carried the ark of the God of Israel there.
1 Samuel 5:8They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried over to Gath.” They carried the ark of the God of Israel there.
1 Samuel 5:9It was so, that after they had carried it there, Yahweh’s hand was against the city with a very great confusion; and he struck the men of the city, both small and great, so that tumors broke out on them.
1 Samuel 5:10So they sent God’s ark to Ekron. As God’s ark came to Ekron, the Ekronites cried out, saying, “They have brought the ark of the God of Israel here to us, to kill us and our people.”