to storm: to rage the way wind and sea do, and to seize, drive, or batter whatever the storm catches.
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
All seven uses are one picture seen from different sides: violent weather in action.
It can name the storming itself, as when the sea under Jonah's ship keeps getting rougher by the minute.
It can name what the storm does to whatever it catches, whether chaff lifted off a threshing floor or a whole people blown out among foreign nations.
It can name the state a storm leaves behind, as when a ruined city is addressed as one who has been battered and never comforted.
Because that picture holds together so well, the Bible can move it inside a person without changing words. English switches to "enraged"; the Hebrew keeps the weather, and the mind of the king of Aram storms over a leak he cannot trace. Attackers work the same way: in Habakkuk they come on like a squall, all at once and impossible to stand against.
The noun built on this same root (סְעָרָה) names the tempest itself, while this verb is what a tempest does. A near twin spelled with a different s sound (שָׂעַר) shares the storm sense, but it is also the ordinary word for shuddering in horror, which this word never means.
Nuances
1aof the sea: to rage and grow rougher, heaving under a rising storm.
TranslatabilityApproximate
Jon 1:11Jon 1:13
1bof attackers: to sweep in like a squall, striking all at once.
Hab 3:14*
1cto whirl something away: to lift it and carry it off, the way a gale strips a threshing floor.
Hos 13:3Zec 7:14
1dto be left storm-battered: worn down and reeling after weather that would not stop.
Isa 54:11
1eof a person's mind: to be churned up, thrown into turmoil by news that cannot be explained.
the Hebrew is a verb, so the sea is the one doing the storming, and in Jonah it keeps on doing it while the scene builds.Jon 1:11Jon 1:13
Both
both describe water whipped into dangerous violence.Jon 1:11
Only tempestuous
"Tempestuous" is a mostly literary English adjective, often used of moods and romances, so it can sound decorative where the Hebrew is describing weather that is about to kill everyone on board.
the Hebrew is weather rather than temper: it says the king's mind heaved like a sea, without deciding whether the feeling was anger or alarm.2Ki 6:11
Both
both describe a violent inner reaction to news the person cannot account for.2Ki 6:11
Only enraged
"Enraged" commits to anger, and to a person losing self-control, which is a verdict the Hebrew leaves open.
“whirl away”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“storm-tossed”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How sa'ar differs from similar Hebrew words
שָׂעַרthe near twin spelled with a different s sound. It covers the same storming and whirling away, but it is also the ordinary word for shuddering in horror, a sense this word never carries.
This is the word for water in an uproar. The sailors' sea in Jonah keeps getting rougher through the whole scene, and the verb is what the water itself is doing. The other verb is never used of the sea.Jon 1:11Jon 1:13
It can move inside a person, naming a mind churned up by bad news. The king of Aram is stormy over the leak in his war plans, which is agitation and anger rather than fear.2Ki 6:11
It can settle into a lasting condition rather than a single gust: a city addressed as one who has been battered by storms and left without comfort, which is what the storms have made of her.Isa 54:11
Both
Both name a wind strong enough to lift something and carry it out of its place: chaff whirled off the threshing floor, a people whirled away among the nations, a man swept from where he stood.Hos 13:3Zec 7:14Job 27:21Psa 58:9
Both turn the storm into a picture of an attack, with warriors or an invading king striking the way weather strikes, all at once and impossible to stand against.Hab 3:14Dan 11:40
The same spelling also carries a completely different action: people bristling and recoiling at something terrible. Foreign kings shudder as a great power collapses, and the sky itself is told to shudder at what Israel has done. The other verb never describes horror.Ezk 27:35Ezk 32:10Jer 2:12Deu 32:17
The storm can belong to God's own arrival, the weather that surrounds him as he comes, rather than a tool he sends against somebody.Psa 50:3
סְעָרָהthe noun built on this same root: the tempest itself, the weather event, where this word is the verb for what that weather does.
Only this word turns the weather inward and uses it of a person. The king of Aram's mind churns like rough water when he suspects a traitor among his officers, and battered Jerusalem is addressed as someone knocked about by a gale and left without comfort.2Ki 6:11Isa 54:11
Here people, not weather, can do the storming. An enemy army sweeps in like a squall to scatter its victim, and God says plainly that he was the one who swept a whole nation out among peoples they did not know, with no storm mentioned at all.Hab 3:14Zec 7:14
Both
Both words are used of one and the same storm in the Jonah story, which shows how close their range is: the noun names the great blow the LORD hurled at the sea, and the verb says the sea kept getting rougher while the sailors argued about what to do.Jon 1:4Jon 1:12Jon 1:11Jon 1:13
Both carry the same picture of judgment: people blown off the ground like threshing waste. Chaff is driven off the threshing floor in one, and stubble is snatched away and scattered in the other.Hos 13:3Isa 40:24Isa 41:16
This is the word for the storm God speaks out of and travels in. It is what carries Elijah up out of sight, what the voice answering Job comes from, and what rolls in from the north at the start of Ezekiel's vision.2Ki 2:11Job 38:1Ezk 1:4
Because it names a thing rather than an action, it can be something God raises and then hushes again. He speaks and the gale gets up, he speaks again and it drops to a whisper, and elsewhere the wind is listed among the creatures that carry out his orders.Psa 107:25Psa 107:29Psa 148:8
The prophets turn it into a set image for God's anger on the move: a tempest that goes out, gathers force, and breaks over the heads of the guilty, spoken of as a coming event people can be warned about.Jer 23:19Jer 30:23Ezk 13:11
הָמָהto roar and be in an uproar, used of the sea booming and of a heart in turmoil. It listens to the noise and churning, while this word watches the driving force of the wind.
It names wind with enough force to lift something and carry it off, so the object of the storm goes somewhere. Chaff is whirled away from the threshing floor and a whole people is whirled out among the nations. The other verb makes a commotion but never moves anything.Hos 13:3Zec 7:14
It pictures an attack landing the way weather lands, warriors sweeping in all at once against someone who cannot brace for it.Hab 3:14
It can describe the lasting state the storm leaves behind rather than the event itself: a city addressed as storm-battered and still without comfort.Isa 54:11
Both
Both describe the sea worked up, and the two angles fit together. One hears the deep booming of the waves as they pound and crash, the other watches the water heave and grow rougher around a ship until the sailors give up rowing.Psa 46:3Jer 5:22Isa 51:15Jon 1:11Jon 1:13
Both take rough weather inside a person and make it a picture of a mind that will not settle. A psalmist says his soul is in turmoil and that he is restless when he remembers God, and a foreign king is churned up by news of a leak he cannot explain.Psa 42:11Psa 77:32Ki 6:11
This is first of all a word for noise, the racket you can actually hear. A whole city breaks into an uproar loud enough to reach men eating outside it (1 Kings 1:41), a town is described as full of shouting, and dogs growl their way around the walls at night. The other verb never names a sound.1Ki 1:41Isa 22:2Psa 59:6Psa 59:14
It can label a person as loud and unruly by character, not just in one moment: the woman who is boisterous and will not stay home, the foolish woman who is all clamor, and the drink that turns whoever takes it into a brawler.Pro 7:11Pro 9:13Pro 20:1
When it moves inside a person the feeling is grief or yearning with a voice in it, a churning that comes out as a groan. The psalmist asks his own soul why it is in such turmoil, a prophet says his insides moan for a doomed city, and God says his heart yearns for a wayward son.Psa 42:5Psa 43:5Isa 16:11Jer 31:20
נָדַףto drive or blow something away, as wind drives chaff (Psalm 1:4). It names the pushing along, while this word says the wind doing the pushing is a gale.
It names the turbulence itself and needs no object at all: the sea keeps growing rougher and rougher around Jonah's ship while the sailors try to row back to land.Jon 1:11Jon 1:13
The storm can be inward or personal: the king of Aram's heart churns when he hears his plans are known, and battered Jerusalem is addressed as a woman storm-tossed and left without comfort.2Ki 6:11Isa 54:11
Where it does move something, the force is a violent assault rather than a breeze: attackers burst out like a gale to scatter their victim, and God flings his own people out among nations they never knew.Hab 3:14Zec 7:14
Both
Both supply the threshing floor image for judgment: people who looked solid turn out to be chaff, swept off the floor and gone.Psa 1:4Hos 13:3
Both can put God behind the wind, clearing away those he rejects: smoke driven off before a fire, and a whole people whirled out among the nations.Psa 68:2Zec 7:14
Its subject is something light and dry that the wind simply carries off: chaff, smoke, a single leaf, burnt stubble. The picture is of a thing with no weight to resist, not of any violent weather.Psa 1:4Job 13:25Isa 41:2
It can be used with no wind in the picture at all, where it means little more than gone: the crops along the Nile dry up and are "no more", and money made by lying is a puff of breath already blown away.Isa 19:7Pro 21:6
Because the thing it moves is so slight, it can carry a note of harmlessness turned to terror: the mere sound of a leaf being blown along sends guilty people running as though from a sword.Lev 26:36
זָרָהto winnow or scatter, the farmer's word for tossing grain into the air and, from there, for dispersing a people. It describes the spreading out; this word supplies the storm that does the spreading.
It names the raging itself, most plainly of the sea working itself up into a gale that keeps getting worse while the sailors fight it.Jon 1:11Jon 1:13
It turns inward and describes a person or a city in turmoil: a king whose heart churns like rough weather at bad news, and a battered town spoken of as storm-tossed and uncomforted.2Ki 6:11Isa 54:11
It pictures attackers sweeping in with the force of a gale, storming forward to break their victim apart.Hab 3:14
Both
Both picture wind carrying something off the threshing floor so it cannot settle back down: the winnower's grain is thrown up for the wind to take, and the chaff is whirled away from the floor.Isa 41:16Ezk 5:2Hos 13:3
Both describe God driving his people out of their land and away among foreign nations, so the threshing floor image becomes a picture of exile.Lev 26:33Ezk 12:15Zec 7:14
It is the farmer's own deliberate work at the threshing floor: a person tosses the beaten grain into the air with a fork or shovel so the light husks blow off and the heavy kernels fall back down. The word names the job someone does, not the weather that does it to them.Rut 3:2Isa 30:24Jer 4:11Jer 15:7
Because winnowing sorts the good from the worthless, the word carries a sense of sifting and examining. A wise king sifts out the wicked with a look, and God sifts the path a person walks.Pro 20:8Pro 20:26Psa 139:3
It can simply mean spreading or strewing something over an area, with no wind and no storm anywhere in the picture: ground-up gold sprinkled on water, burning sulfur strewn over a home, bones spread around an altar, and even knowledge spread abroad by wise lips.Exo 32:20Job 18:15Ezk 6:5Pro 15:7
sa'ar in the other biblical languages
χειμάζωGreek“be storm-tossed”the Greek verb for being storm-tossed at sea, used of Paul's ship in the gale (Acts 27:18). It matches the battered side of this word rather than the driving side.
The Hebrew word can name the storming itself, with the weather as the one doing it. In Jonah the sea keeps getting rougher by the minute, and the verb describes what the water is doing rather than what the water is doing to somebody.Jon 1:11Jon 1:13
It can take a victim and carry it off. A gale lifts chaff clean off a threshing floor, and the same verb has God whirl a disobedient people out of their land and away among foreign nations.Hos 13:3Zec 7:14
It moves inside a person without changing words. The mind of the king of Aram storms over a leak in his war plans that he cannot trace, and English has to switch to something like "enraged" or "greatly troubled" to carry it.2Ki 6:11
It also pictures human attackers. In Habakkuk they come on the way weather comes on, all at once and impossible to stand against, and the target is a person rather than a ship.Hab 3:14
Both
Both can put people on the receiving end of weather they cannot escape. The Hebrew addresses a ruined city as one who has been battered by storms and left without comfort, and the Greek says the same thing of everyone aboard Paul's ship, which is why the Greek verb is the natural counterpart for the battered side of the Hebrew one.Isa 54:11Act 27:18
Both describe real weather at sea and not only a figure of speech. One has the water rising against the ship carrying Jonah until the sailors cannot row back to shore, the other has a gale pounding a grain ship until the crew starts throwing the cargo overboard.Jon 1:13Act 27:18
The Greek verb stays out on the water. It is built on the word for winter weather, and its one New Testament use is a plain sailing report of a ship's company taking a beating from a gale, with no reach beyond bad weather at sea into a churned-up temper, a wind stripping a threshing floor, or an army striking like a squall.Act 27:18
κλυδωνίζωGreek“to toss”the Greek verb for being thrown about by waves, used in Ephesians 4:14 of people tossed by every new teaching. Like this word it moves easily from weather to what weather does to a person.
It is not tied to water at all. It is just as much the wind on dry land, stripping chaff off a threshing floor or sweeping a whole people out of their country into exile.Hos 13:3Zec 7:14
It can name the storm's own mounting fury, with the sea itself as the one doing the storming and getting rougher by the minute.Jon 1:11Jon 1:13
It moves inside a person without changing words, describing a mind whipped up with anger and alarm. English has to switch to "enraged" or "greatly troubled" there.2Ki 6:11
It can describe an attack, with human enemies coming on like a squall to scatter the one they have cornered.Hab 3:14
Both
Both put a person, not a boat or a field, at the mercy of rough weather, and English Bibles reach for the same word, "tossed", in each place.Isa 54:11Eph 4:14
In both, the rough water is a danger rather than mere motion: the sailors around Jonah are fighting for their lives, and the believers in Ephesus are being carried toward deceit.Jon 1:11Eph 4:14
The picture is strictly water: something floating on the surface being heaved up and dropped again by the swell. There is no dry ground in it, and nothing gets carried off across a landscape.Eph 4:14
It always looks at the thing being thrown about rather than at the weather. The waves are simply the setting; what the word reports is that a person cannot hold steady.Eph 4:14
What stirs the water here is human scheming, not wind or judgment. People with clever teaching and trickery are the swell, and the tossing is the effect their words have on the untaught.Eph 4:14
It names a settled condition rather than a passing incident: a way of being that marks the immature, and that growing up is supposed to cure.Eph 4:14
What scholars say about sa'ar
The standard lexicons (HALOT, BDB, DCH) treat all seven occurrences as one root. The simple active form is intransitive, of the sea raging (Jonah 1:11, 13) and of attackers sweeping in (Habakkuk 3:14); the passive forms describe someone left storm-tossed (Isaiah 54:11) and, of the heart of the Aramean king, thrown into turmoil (2 Kings 6:11), where BDB glosses "be tossed, i.e. much perturbed" and modern versions divide between anger and alarm; the intensive forms are transitive, whirling chaff from the threshing floor (Hosea 13:3) and driving Judah out among the nations (Zechariah 7:14), where Meyers and Meyers stress the deportation imagery. Lexicographers note the overlap with שׂער, whose storm sense is nearly identical and whose sibilant differs; HALOT and BDB keep the two entries apart while recording the interchange, and NIDOTTE handles the root together with the storm nouns סַעַר and סְעָרָה. Habakkuk 3:14 stands in one of the most damaged passages in the prophetic corpus, and reconstructions differ sharply over the subject and object of the verb (Albright rewrote much of the psalm; Roberts is more restrained), though no one questions the verb's storm force there.