Hebrew word · H7773
שֶׁוַע
shav'i
to cry
A cry for help: the shout of someone in danger or wronged who calls for rescue. The noun is rare. The related noun shawʿāh (H7775) and the verb shiwwaʿ, 'to cry for help' (H7768), are more common. The root's setting is distress and calls for justice.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
to cry
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
- Range of meaning
A cry for help: the shout of someone in danger or wronged who calls for rescue. The noun is rare. The related noun shawʿāh (H7775) and the verb shiwwaʿ, 'to cry for help' (H7768), are more common. The root's setting is distress and calls for justice.
- Against the English
'My cry' (BSB, KJV, WEB) is accurate but bare. In modern English 'cry' can mean weeping. Here it means calling out for help. NIV and NASB make this explicit with 'cry for help'. The Greek Septuagint softened it to deēsis, 'petition, entreaty'.
- How it drifted
Not drift so much as ambiguity. English 'cry' covers tears as well as shouting, and readers may picture sobbing when the Hebrew pictures someone calling for rescue.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Exod 2:23: Israel's 'cry for help' (shawʿāh) went up to God from their slavery. Job 19:7: 'I cry for help, but there is no justice.' The verb sits right beside the word for a just verdict there. Hab 1:2: 'How long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?' Ps 18:6 and 34:15 use it for cries God hears. The root is often linked to calls for justice against oppression.
Where it appears
Psalms · 1
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Psalm 5:2 שַׁוְעִ֗י cry for help my
Attend to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I pray.
Here: 'My cry for help'. The root is used for the shout of someone in trouble who calls for rescue or justice. It is a distress call, not a general word for speaking or praying.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.