what is left over: the rest, remainder, or surplus of something
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
This is the common use of the word. It names the part of a thing that is left after the rest has been accounted for: the rest of a king's deeds after the ones already told, the rest of a people after some have been taken, the food left after the locusts, the surplus a family stores up. The word does not judge that leftover as good or bad on its own. It simply marks it as the portion not yet covered.
From there the same word can tilt toward plenty rather than scarcity. A remainder can be a generous overflow, a surplus, even an abundance kept in reserve. In a few places this shades further into the idea of being over and above the ordinary, that is, excellence or preeminence: the firstborn who has the extra measure of dignity and strength. The thread holding all of these together is the simple notion of an amount beyond a baseline, whether that extra is a scrap or a surplus.
The most frequent setting by far is the recurring royal record formula in Kings and Chronicles, where the rest of the acts of a given king are said to be written elsewhere. There the word is purely quantitative: the deeds not included here.
Nuances
1athe rest or remainder: the part of a group, people, or account that is left
1bsurplus or abundance: what is held over in plenty, more than the immediate need
CertaintyStrong
Exo 23:11Job 4:21*Job 22:20Psa 17:14
1cpreeminence or excess: an extra measure that sets something above the ordinary
Gen 49:3 (2×)Pro 17:7Isa 56:12Dan 8:9
2
a cord or bowstring: a length of twisted fiber, often the string of a bow
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyStrong
In a small group of texts the same spelling names a physical cord made of twisted sinew or fiber. Most often it is the taut string of a bow, the line an arrow rests on before it is loosed. In the Samson story it is the set of fresh, still moist cords the Philistines bind him with, the kind that have not yet dried and hardened.
This use has nothing to do with the idea of a leftover. The two are separate words that happen to be written the same way, and the standard lexicons list them as distinct entries. Context settles which is meant: a string on a bow and a remnant of a kingdom never blur together. Readers should treat this as a true look-alike, not a stretched sense of remainder.
the Hebrew word is fairly neutral about the leftover and can even mean a surplus; it does not by itself imply survivors of a catastropheExo 10:5
Both
both can name what is left of a group after part of it is goneExo 10:5
Only remnant
remnant in English leans toward a small piece spared from destruction, importing a drama the Hebrew word alone does not carry
“excellency”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“bowstring”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How yeter differs from similar Hebrew words
שְׁאֵרִיתa surviving remnant left after disaster, with a strong sense of who or what escaped destruction; יֶתֶר is more neutral, simply the part not yet counted
Neutral surplus or leftover with no sense of crisis: the part of a thing that is simply left over once the main portion is taken or used.Exo 10:5Lev 14:17
A formulaic record-keeping label for whatever else there is to tell: the rest of the acts of a king, used over and over in the historical books as a pointer to further sources.1Ki 11:411Ki 14:192Ki 10:34
The rest of a group of people, the remaining majority simply not yet named or accounted for, carrying no theological weight.1Sa 13:22Sa 10:102Sa 12:28
Both
Both name what is left over after the main body is gone, so they sit side by side describing the surviving few of a people.Zep 2:9
The survivors left after a disaster or judgment, the few who came through a catastrophe that destroyed the rest.Gen 45:72Ki 19:31Jer 15:9
The theologically loaded remnant of Israel or Judah that carries God's promise of continuance and future restoration.2Ki 19:4Isa 37:32Jer 23:3
Can stand under threat of total annihilation, the last surviving trace that enemies or judgment aim to wipe out entirely.2Sa 14:7Ezk 9:8Amo 1:8
שְׁאָרthe rest or remainder of a group, close in meaning but weighted toward survivors who are left over; יֶתֶר ranges more freely from scrap to surplus to preeminence
יָתַרthe verb to be left over or to remain; יֶתֶר is the noun for the leftover itself, the result of that action rather than the action
עָדַףto be in excess, to have a surplus, focused on the act of exceeding a measure; יֶתֶר names the surplus amount as a thing
יֶתֶרJether; Jethro is a biblical name written exactly like יֶ֫תֶר, the common Hebrew word grouped here.
Names a countable leftover of a real, physical thing: the crops the locusts have not yet eaten, the plunder still on hand, the oil still in the priest's palm.Exo 10:5Num 31:32Lev 14:17
Carries the standing formula of the royal records, where everything else a king did is said to be written down somewhere else, so the word points to the untold part of an account rather than to any profit.1Ki 14:192Ki 21:17
Can name standing rather than quantity, an added measure of dignity or force that lifts one person or thing above the others.Gen 49:3Dan 8:9
The same spelling also carries a separate, unrelated meaning, a cord or a bowstring, so a reader meeting this word in a story about ropes or archers is not meeting the leftover word at all.Jdg 16:7Psa 11:2
Both
Both can name what is still there once part of something has been taken or used up, the portion standing after the count.1Sa 15:15Exo 10:5
Both can point past the ordinary measure to something that runs over it, whether that is a larger share or a higher standing than anyone else has.Est 6:6Gen 49:3
Weighs a gain: it asks what someone actually comes out ahead by, setting one person or course of life against another and testing whether the extra is worth anything at all.Ecc 6:8Ecc 6:11Ecc 7:11
Marks the point where more turns into too much, warning that a good thing pushed past its measure stops doing good.Ecc 7:16Ecc 2:15
Works as a connecting word that tacks on a further remark, closer to "besides" or "furthermore" than to any portion of anything.Ecc 12:9Ecc 12:12
Counts the concrete leftover of a specific thing: the oil still in the priest's hand, the plunder not yet divided, the troops sent home.Lev 14:17Num 31:321Sa 13:2
Names a surviving remnant of a people, the few left after the rest have been wiped out.Deu 3:11Jos 12:42Sa 21:2
Carries the fixed record-keeping formula of Kings, "the rest of the acts of" a given ruler, pointing to the deeds the narrator has not written down.1Ki 14:191Ki 15:72Ki 13:8
Can name a plain physical object, the cord or bowstring Delilah ties Samson with, something a person holds in the hand.Jdg 16:7Jdg 16:8Jdg 16:9
Both
Both start from the idea of something left over, so each can name an amount beyond the ordinary: an extra measure of dignity and strength in one, the extra worth of knowledge in the other.Gen 49:3Ecc 7:12
Each looks at what survives once something has been used up, whether that is the greenery the hail did not destroy or the balance left after all a person's effort has been counted.Exo 10:5Ecc 2:11
Frames the driving question of Ecclesiastes, whether a lifetime of work leaves anyone anything lasting to show for it, and repeatedly answers no.Ecc 1:3Ecc 2:11Ecc 3:9Ecc 5:16
Weighs one course of life against another and names the one that pays better, as wisdom beats folly the way light beats darkness.Ecc 2:13Ecc 7:12
Measures practical payoff in ordinary work, the edge a sharpened tool or a skill used at the right moment actually gives you.Ecc 10:10Ecc 10:11
Can name the return worked ground gives back, a yield that reaches everyone rather than a balance that comes out empty.Ecc 5:9
Names a remnant: what is left over after part has been taken, eaten, or destroyed. This concrete leftover sense is the heart of the word and has no counterpart in meod.Jol 1:4Exo 10:5Deu 3:11
Marks the rest of a definite quantity or group: the remaining portion of an amount, an army, or a territory, the part still on hand once the named share is set aside.Lev 14:172Sa 12:28Jos 13:27
Names a physical taut line, a fresh bowstring or tent cord, a tangible object that can be tied, stretched, or snapped. meod is never a thing one can hold.Jdg 16:7Jdg 16:9Psa 11:2
Both
Both can intensify, pushing a quality to its extreme. meod is the everyday way to say very or exceedingly, and in a handful of places yeter slips into the same heightening role, the leftover or surplus shading into more and exceedingly. This overlap is the seed of the later Hebrew shift in which the related form yoter takes over the intensifier job from meod.Dan 8:9Pro 17:7Gen 1:31
Both can stack together in one breath to crank a comparison higher, the surplus sense of yeter and the intensifier meod reinforcing each other to mean far greater still.Isa 56:12
Works as a pure degree word that heightens an adjective or verb to very or exceedingly, adding no content of its own beyond force. It is the standard biblical intensifier, attaching to good, wicked, angry, and almost anything else.Gen 1:31Gen 13:131Sa 18:8
Doubles or compounds on itself to push past its own ceiling, reaching a superlative beyond measure, utterly, exceedingly, a move yeter never makes.Gen 7:19Gen 17:2Psa 38:6
In two places stands as a noun naming the whole of one's capacity, the might or full strength a person brings to loving God.Deu 6:52Ki 23:25
Its everyday job is counting what is left over. It marks the rest of a population after the deportation, the food the locusts did not eat, and the rest of a king's doings that the record keeper did not write down here.2Ki 25:11Exo 10:51Ki 11:41
The same word can tip from scarcity toward plenty, naming a surplus held in reserve: the wealth a well fed family still has left to pass on to its children, and the produce of the fallow field left standing for wild animals after the poor have eaten.Psa 17:14Exo 23:11
It can also mean an extra measure that puts someone or something above the ordinary, so it works as a word for preeminence: Reuben as firstborn is called extra in dignity and extra in strength, fine speech is called unfitting for a fool, and a small horn grows outsized in Daniel's vision.Gen 49:3Pro 17:7Dan 8:9
When it does name a cord, the cord can be a length of rope used to tie a person up. The Philistines bring Delilah seven fresh cords that have not dried out, and she binds Samson with them.Jdg 16:7Jdg 16:8Jdg 16:9
Both
Both name the string of a bow, the cord stretched between the two ends and drawn tight to shoot. The wicked set their arrow on the string to shoot at the upright, and the king takes aim at the faces of his enemies with his bowstrings.Psa 11:2Psa 21:12
Both are ropes that hold only under strain and can be snapped, and the text uses the very same verb for the snapping in each case: Samson breaks the cords binding him as easily as a strand of fiber breaks when fire touches it, and the prophet's tent ropes are broken clean off.Jdg 16:9Jer 10:20
It is the standard term for the guy ropes of the tabernacle, listed in the inventories of sacred equipment right beside the pegs, the posts, and the hangings of the courtyard, as gear that a named family was responsible for carrying.Exo 35:18Num 3:37Num 4:26
It carries the picture of a household or a nation as a tent that stands only while its ropes hold. Zion is told to lengthen her ropes and drive her pegs in harder because the family is about to outgrow the tent, and the mourning prophet says his tent is wrecked and every rope of it snapped.Isa 54:2Jer 10:20
It never means anything but the cord itself. All nine of its appearances name a physical rope pulled taut, either a tent rope or a bowstring, so it never carries the leftover or surplus sense that dominates the other word.Exo 39:40Psa 21:12
A plain, neutral leftover: whatever is left of a thing or group after some is taken, with no sense of danger or rescue.Num 31:32Jos 12:4Deu 3:11
The recurring royal annals formula, the rest of the acts of a king, pointing readers to further records.1Ki 11:411Ki 14:192Ki 8:23
A concrete cord or bowstring, a separate everyday sense of the same word.Jdg 16:7Jdg 16:8Jdg 16:9
Both
Both name what is left over after a loss, and they stand side by side in one verse for the little the locusts left of what the hail had spared.Exo 10:5
Nearly every time, this word is not a cord at all: it names what is left over. It is the rest of the oil after the priest has used what the ritual required, the rest of the plunder after the soldiers took their share, and the greenery the locusts left behind. פָּתִיל never carries this idea.Lev 14:17Num 31:32Exo 10:5
It became the standard word for the unrecorded balance of a king's reign, the phrase that closes out one ruler after another: the rest of what he did is written elsewhere. This is a fixed formula of the historical books, and פָּתִיל has nothing like it.1Ki 11:411Ki 14:192Ki 8:23
What is left over can be an advantage rather than a scrap, so the word also names a surplus or a rank that puts someone ahead of others: Jacob calls Reuben the son who holds the extra measure of dignity and strength, and the drinkers promise a tomorrow with even more to go around.Gen 49:3Isa 56:12
When it does name a cord, the cord is under tension, above all the string of a bow: archers set the arrow on it, and Job says God has loosed his own string, so that he hangs slack and useless. פָּתִיל is never a bowstring.Psa 11:2Job 30:11Jdg 16:7
Both
Both name a thin length of twisted fiber that a hard pull can snap, and one verse sets them side by side: the fresh cords the Philistines bind Samson with come apart the way a strand of flax comes apart the moment fire touches it. The two words are close enough there that one supplies the picture for the other.Jdg 16:9
Neither is a heavy rope. Both name a single light strand, the kind knotted around a wrist or threaded through a ring or a drilled seal, which is why the next attempt on Samson reaches for thick braided rope instead, a different word altogether.Jdg 16:8Gen 38:18
This is the cord that ties one object onto another and keeps it in place. The blue cord holds the priest's chest piece against his vest and fastens the gold plate to his headpiece, and a cord of the same kind is set on the tassel at the corner of an ordinary Israelite's clothing.Exo 28:28Exo 28:37Num 15:38
It is a cord a person wears or carries as a personal item. Judah hands over the cord that holds his seal along with the seal itself and his staff, and Tamar produces all three later as proof of who the father is.Gen 38:18Gen 38:25
It is not limited to spun fiber: gold is hammered thin and cut into strands of this kind so that the metal can be worked into the woven cloth.Exo 39:3
It stretches to a cord doing technical work. In the hand of the man who measures the temple it is a linen line, and in the purity law the phrase for a jar with a lid tied down tight uses this word for the tie that seals it.Ezk 40:3Num 19:15
yeter in the other biblical languages
λοιπόςGreek“remaining”the Greek word for the remaining ones or the rest, the closest counterpart to the leftover sense
περισσόςGreek“excessive”the Greek word for what is over and above, abundant or more than enough, matching the surplus and abundance shade of יֶתֶר
It names the part of a physical supply still on hand after some of it has been used or destroyed: the oil left in the priest's palm after the first application (Leviticus 14:17), the growing things the hail left for locusts to finish off (Exodus 10:5), the plunder remaining once the soldiers had taken their own share (Numbers 31:32).Lev 14:17Exo 10:5Num 31:32
It names the people still there once others have been separated off or wiped out: the troops Saul sent home after keeping three thousand (1 Samuel 13:2), the men who knelt to drink rather than lapping the water (Judges 7:6), the survivors of the people Og belonged to (Deuteronomy 3:11), and the Gibeonites as what was left of the Amorites (2 Samuel 21:2).1Sa 13:2Jdg 7:6Deu 3:112Sa 21:2
It carries the standard record keeping phrase of Israel's royal histories, "the rest of the acts of" a king, which hands the reader off to another book for everything this account has not told: Solomon (1 Kings 11:41) and Jeroboam (1 Kings 14:19).1Ki 11:411Ki 14:19
The same spelling doubles as the word for a cord or bowstring, with no idea of surplus in it at all: Samson tells Delilah that seven fresh cords would leave him as weak as anyone else (Judges 16:7,Judges 16:8).Jdg 16:7Jdg 16:8
Both
Both can name the surplus that puts one party ahead of others, an advantage or a higher standing. Reuben as firstborn is credited with extra dignity and extra strength (Genesis 49:3), and Paul asks what advantage the Jew then has (Romans 3:1).Gen 49:3Rom 3:1
Both point to whatever lies past a stated amount, which is why both are often rendered "the rest" or "what is more": the words spoken beyond a plain yes or no (Matthew 5:37) and the oil beyond what the priest has already put on (Leviticus 14:17).Mat 5:37Lev 14:17
The extra can be judged unwelcome. Paul says it would be needless for him to write about a collection his readers are already committed to (2 Corinthians 9:1), and Jesus says whatever is tacked on past a plain yes or no comes from evil (Matthew 5:37). Here the surplus is unnecessary or even suspect, not simply a portion still on hand.2Co 9:1Mat 5:37
It measures conduct against what anyone would already do: greeting only your own circle counts as nothing extra, because even outsiders manage that much (Matthew 5:47). The comparison is between one person's behavior and the ordinary standard, not between a taken portion and a leftover one.Mat 5:47
It can describe overflowing fullness of something good, where more is the whole point: Jesus came so that people would have life, and have it in abundance (John 10:10).Jhn 10:10
It stretches into a phrase meaning "beyond all measure", describing how intensely something is felt rather than how much of anything is left: the disciples in the boat were astonished past all bounds (Mark 6:51).Mrk 6:51
The Hebrew word can tilt toward plenty rather than shortage. The same word names the surplus a family holds in reserve, the wealth left over for the children, and the harvest the poor and the wild animals eat in the seventh year. The Aramaic word never moves in that direction; it stays a plain leftover.Exo 23:11Psa 17:14
It stretches further still, to an extra measure that raises someone above the ordinary. Jacob calls his firstborn the extra portion of dignity and strength, and Proverbs speaks of speech that is more than a fool deserves. Nothing in the Aramaic word reaches beyond quantity to worth or rank.Gen 49:3Pro 17:7
It carries the fixed record-keeping refrain that closes a king's reign in Kings and Chronicles, where the rest of a king's deeds are said to be written in another book. That formula sends the reader to a source outside the page, and it has no counterpart in the Aramaic material.1Ki 11:412Ki 20:20
A second, unrelated Hebrew word is written with the same letters and names a physical cord, most often the taut string of a bow. Samson is bound with fresh cords, and the wicked lay their arrow on the string. Readers who know only the leftover sense are caught out here, and the Aramaic word has no such look-alike.Jdg 16:7Psa 11:2
Both
Both name whatever is left of a group once part of it has been singled out. David hands the rest of the troops to his brother; the other beasts of the vision keep their lives for a season.2Sa 10:10Dan 7:12
Both do plain accounting work, covering the goods, money, and supplies still on hand after the named portions have been dealt with. One counts the plunder left after the offering is set aside; the other covers the silver and gold and further needs of the temple after the specified purchases.Num 31:32Ezr 7:18Ezr 7:20
Neither word carries the loaded prophetic idea of a surviving remnant on its own. Each simply marks the part not yet accounted for, and the weight a passage may add comes from its setting, not from the word.Exo 10:5Ezr 6:16
Its usual home is the language of Persian government. Official letters name the important senders or addressees by rank and then gather up everyone else with this one word, "and the rest of their colleagues." That bureaucratic sweep is where most of its occurrences sit.Ezr 4:9Ezr 4:17
It can also stand on its own, without saying what it is left of, for sheer wreckage. In Daniel's vision it names the crushed remains the fourth beast did not swallow but trampled underfoot, which is debris rather than a portion counted off a named whole.Dan 7:7Dan 7:19
What scholars say about yeter
Standard lexicons treat the spelling as two separate words. The first, from the root meaning to be left over, covers remainder, surplus, abundance, and by extension excellence or preeminence; it is by far the more common, dominating the royal record formula in Kings and Chronicles. The second, listed as a homonym, denotes a cord or bowstring and appears in only a handful of texts. The distribution and the unrelated meanings support keeping the two as distinct entries rather than one polysemous word.