StrongerBible

sarah

שָׂרָה

HebrewH8280“strive, struggle, ...”

Appears 2 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 32:28(29)Hos 12:3(4)
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-gradesah-RAHverb

What sarah means

to contend with someone: to set yourself against another and hold out rather than give way

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This verb turns up in only two places in the Bible, and both are about the same night. In Genesis a stranger wrestles Jacob until daybreak, then tells him his name will no longer be Jacob but Israel, "because you have contended with God and with men, and you have prevailed." Hosea repeats the line centuries later when he retells the story. Everything we know about the word comes from that one episode and the prophet's echo of it.

Two neighboring words help fix what it does and does not say. The physical grappling in Genesis is carried by a different verb (אָבַק), used three verses earlier, so "wrestle" is the picture of the scene rather than the meaning of this word. And in both verses the winning is stated separately, by a second verb meaning "and he prevailed" (יָכֹל). What is left for this word is the contending itself: standing against another and not backing down.

The oldest translators heard it differently than modern ones do. The ancient Greek and Latin versions both render it "you have been strong," and the old Aramaic version goes further still, "you have become great before the Lord." They pulled the word toward the common verb for ruling and acting as a prince (שָׂרַר), which in Hebrew differs from it by a single letter. Modern dictionaries have moved the other way, settling on "strive, contend, struggle." Both readings survive in English Bibles, in the King James "as a prince hast thou power with God" against the modern "you have striven with God."

The word carries an enormous load for its size, because a nation's name hangs on it. Genesis ties the name Israel (יִשְׂרָאֵל) to this verb, but most scholars think the name is older than the story, and that in names built this way it is God who does the verb, not the person. On that reading the name originally said something like "God rules" or "God persists," and the line in Genesis is a deliberate play on words rather than a word history.

Gen 32:28(29)Hos 12:3(4)

Disputed

Whether the core sense of the verb is contending and striving, or being strong and prevailing.

  • majorityThe verb means "strive, contend, struggle," the standard gloss of the modern lexica.; BDB, s.v. שָׂרָה I (p. 975); HALOT, s.v. שׂרה; DCH, ed. D. J. A. Clines, vol. 8 (2011), s.v. שׂרה
  • minorityThe center of gravity is "be strong, persist, prevail," close in sense to שׂרר "to rule"; every ancient version read the verb this way.; E. A. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible 1 (1964), 254; Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (1989), 227-228

What scholars say about sarah

The verb is confined to Genesis 32:29 (English 32:28) and Hosea 12:4 (English 12:3); the anomalous וַיָּשַׂר at Hosea 12:5 (English 12:4) is variously taken as an apocopated wayyiqtol of שׂרה or repointed to שׂרר, and STEPBible's morphology tags it under H7786 שׂור rather than here, which is why this lemma carries only two occurrences. BDB (975) glosses "persist, exert oneself, persevere," comparing a disputed Arabic cognate šariya; HALOT gives "kämpfen, streiten" while explicitly raising the possibility of a byform of שׂרר; DCH (vol. 8, 2011) declines etymology and lists "strive, contend, struggle" for all four forms. TLOT has no verbal entry, and Zobel's TDOT article on יִשְׂרָאֵל derives the verbal element of the name from שׂרר, effectively dissolving the separate root. The comparative evidence is asymmetrical: šrr "rule, be firm" is secure across Akkadian (šarru, šarrūtu), Ugaritic (šr), Aramaic, Ge'ez (śarara) and the Amorite yaśrā-names, while no Ugaritic, Akkadian, Aramaic or Ge'ez cognate supports a distinct śrh "strive." Kogan (Babel und Bibel 3 [2006] 237-256) and Huehnergard therefore judge the "wrestle" root a Hebrew-internal creation, and Cross reads יִשְׂרָאֵל as a normal yqtl plus divine-name sentence-name, "El rules." The versional tradition is uniform in the other direction: LXX renders both passages with ἐνισχύω, against ἐπάλαιεν for אבק at Genesis 32:25; Vulgate has fortis fuisti and invaluit ad angelum; the Peshitta reads "you have proven yourself strong"; Targum Onkelos assimilates the verb outright to שׂרר, "you have become great before the Lord"; Aquila and Symmachus use ἦρξας and ἐπρωτεύεις. Noth's demonstration that yqtl plus divine-name sentence-names take the divine element as subject underlies the mainstream judgment (Gunkel, Skinner, Westermann, Speiser, Wenham, Sarna, Alter, Cross, Hendel, Kogan) that Genesis 32:29 is paronomasia rather than etymology. On the Hosea passage, Wolff (Hermeneia, 206-213), following Nyberg and Bentzen, repoints וַיָּשַׂר to שׂרר with the angel as subject and reads Jacob polemically, while Andersen and Freedman (Anchor Bible, 1980), Macintosh (ICC, 1997), Stuart (WBC, 190) and Dearman (NICOT, 2010) retain שׂרה throughout and differ mainly on their evaluation of the patriarch.

Where scholars disagree about sarah

Whether שׂרה is a genuine independent Hebrew root or a Hebrew-internal outgrowth of שׂרר "to rule, be prince."

  • contestedA distinct verbal root meaning "strive, contend," kept as its own lexical entry and separate from the root for ruling.; BDB, s.v. שָׂרָה I (p. 975); HALOT, s.v. שׂרה; DCH, ed. D. J. A. Clines, vol. 8 (2011), s.v. שׂרה; Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed., ed. U. Rüterswörden, s.v. שׂרה
  • contestedNo independent root: the form is a Hebrew-internal development of the well-attested root for ruling, shaped around the wordplay on Israel's name, since the comparative Semitic evidence supports only šrr.; Leonid Kogan, "The Etymology of Israel," Babel und Bibel 3 (2006) 237-256; H.-J. Zobel, "יִשְׂרָאֵל," TDOT, vol. 6; Martin Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung, BWANT 46 (1928), 207-210

Whether the name יִשְׂרָאֵל derives from this verb with Jacob as the one contending, as Genesis 32:29 (English 32:28) explains it, or from שׂרר with God as the subject.

  • majorityThe name is a sentence-name whose divine element is the subject, so it originally meant something like "El rules" or "El persists"; the Genesis explanation is paronomasia, not etymology.; Martin Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung, BWANT 46 (1928), 207-210; Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard, 1973), 46, 60; Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50, WBC 2 (1994), 296; Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (1989), Excursus 25
  • minorityThe narrator's derivation preserves a rare but genuine root, and the explanation given in Genesis should be read as substantially accurate.; Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26, NAC 1B (2005); Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (2001)
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. שָׂרָה I (p. 975)lexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. שׂרהlexicon
  • DCH, ed. D. J. A. Clines, vol. 8 (2011), s.v. שׂרהlexicon
  • Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed., ed. U. Rüterswörden, s.v. שׂרהlexicon
  • NIDOTTE, ed. W. A. VanGemeren, s.v. שׂרהtheological-dictionary
  • H.-J. Zobel, "יִשְׂרָאֵל," TDOT, vol. 6theological-dictionary
  • Martin Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung, BWANT 46 (1928), 207-210monograph
  • Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard, 1973), 46, 60monograph
  • Leonid Kogan, "The Etymology of Israel," Babel und Bibel 3 (2006) 237-256article
  • E. A. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible 1 (1964), 254commentary
  • Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (1989), 227-228 and Excursus 25commentary
  • Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50, WBC 2 (1994), 296commentary
  • Claus Westermann, Genesis 12-36, BKAT (1985)commentary
  • John Skinner, Genesis, ICC (1910)commentary
  • Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea, Hermeneia (1974), 206-213commentary
  • A. A. Macintosh, Hosea, ICC (1997)commentary
  • Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea, Anchor Bible 24 (1980)commentary
  • Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, WBC 31 (1987), 190commentary
  • J. Andrew Dearman, The Book of Hosea, NICOT (2010)commentary
  • Lyle Eslinger, "Hosea 12:5a and Genesis 32:29: A Study in Inner Biblical Exegesis," JSOT 18 (1980) 91-99article
  • Ronald S. Hendel, The Epic of the Patriarch, HSM 42 (1987)monograph
  • Moshe Garsiel, Biblical Names: A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns (Bar-Ilan, 1991)monograph

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of שָׂרָה

qal perfect 2ms

שָׂרִיתָ

Gen 32:28

qal perfect 3ms

שָׂרָה

Hos 12:3