Hebrew word · H5438

סִבָּה

sibah

turn

Found only here in the Bible. It comes from the root s-b-b, 'to turn, go around, surround'. BDB glosses it 'turn of affairs'; HALOT 'turn (of events)'. The parallel in 2 Chronicles 10:15 uses nesibbah, from the same root and also found only there.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 24, 2026

What it means

turn of events, turn of affairs

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of 1 Kings 12:15

Range of meaning: Found only here in the Bible. It comes from the root s-b-b, 'to turn, go around, surround'. BDB glosses it 'turn of affairs'; HALOT 'turn (of events)'. The parallel in 2 Chronicles 10:15 uses nesibbah, from the same root and also found only there. The picture is of events swinging round, a change of direction, not a 'reason' in the abstract.
Against the English: KJV 'the cause was from the LORD' reads the later Hebrew sense. YLT 'the revolution' is literally close (a turning-round), but modern readers hear 'political uprising'. BSB, NIV and NASB 'turn of events' and ESV 'turn of affairs' are the most accurate. WEB 'a thing brought about' gets the agency right but drops the image of turning.
How it drifted: In medieval Hebrew philosophy sibbah became the technical word for 'cause' (as in the 'first cause'). The KJV translators, working with that later Hebrew, chose 'cause'. Biblical usage gives no support for that abstract sense.
Used elsewhere in the period: The Septuagint renders it metastrophē, 'a turning-about, reversal'. The Vulgate paraphrases: the Lord 'had turned away from him' (aversatus). Its root s-b-b is common for literal turning and for God 'turning' circumstances, e.g. a related form in 1 Kings 18:37, where God has 'turned their heart back'.

Where it appears

1 Kings · 1

1 Kings 12:15 סִבָּה֙ a turn

So the king did not listen to the people, and indeed this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfill the word He had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.

Here: A rare word, found only here in the Bible, from the root 'to turn, go around'. It pictures events swinging round onto a new course. It does not mean a philosophical 'cause' (the sense it took on in later Hebrew).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.