Hebrew word · H6868

צְרֵדָה

tzeredatah

Zeredah

A place name. In 1 Kgs 11:26 Zeredah is Jeroboam's hometown in the hills of Ephraim. Here the form Zeredathah stands where the parallel in 1 Kgs 7:46 reads Zarethan (צָרְתָן), a Jordan-valley town also mentioned in Josh 3:16 and 1 Kgs 4:12.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

§ Zereda or Zeredathah = "fortress"

a town or territory in Manasseh and the home of Jeroboam

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 2 Chronicles 4:17

Range of meaning

A place name. In 1 Kgs 11:26 Zeredah is Jeroboam's hometown in the hills of Ephraim. Here the form Zeredathah stands where the parallel in 1 Kgs 7:46 reads Zarethan (צָרְתָן), a Jordan-valley town also mentioned in Josh 3:16 and 1 Kgs 4:12.

Against the English

KJV/YLT: 'Zeredathah'. BSB/WEB/ESV/NASB: 'Zeredah'. Some modern versions (e.g. NIV, NLT) use 'Zarethan' to match Kings and note the Hebrew spelling in a footnote.

Used elsewhere in the period

Josh 3:16 places the town of Adam 'beside Zarethan', where the Jordan's waters piled up. 1 Kgs 4:12 lists Zarethan in Solomon's fifth district, 'below Jezreel'. Proposed modern sites include Tell es-Sa'idiyeh and Tell Umm Hamad in the eastern Jordan valley.

Where it appears

1 Kings · 1

  1. 1 Kings 11:26 הַצְּרֵדָ֗ה <the> Zeredah

    Now Jeroboam son of Nebat was an Ephraimite from Zeredah whose mother was a widow named Zeruah. Jeroboam was a servant of Solomon, but he rebelled against the king,

2 Chronicles · 1

  1. 2 Chronicles 4:17 צְרֵדָֽתָה׃ Zeredah

    The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zeredah.

    Here: The second boundary point. The final -ah may be a Hebrew ending meaning 'toward', or part of the name (KJV 'Zeredathah'). It is almost certainly the same place as the Zarethan of 1 Kings 7:46, not Jeroboam's hometown Zeredah in Ephraim (1 Kgs 11:26).

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