Hebrew word · H8176

שָׁעַר

sha'ar

to calculate

As a verb it occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. The related noun šaʿar means 'measure' or 'proportion' (Gen 26:12, 'a hundred measures', i.e. a hundredfold).

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to split open, reason out, calculate, reckon, estimate

1a) (Qal) to calculate Pr 23:7

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 Proverbs 23:7

Range of meaning

As a verb it occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. The related noun šaʿar means 'measure' or 'proportion' (Gen 26:12, 'a hundred measures', i.e. a hundredfold). In later Hebrew and Aramaic the root means 'to estimate, assess, value', and in rabbinic Hebrew šaʿar is the standard word for the going market price of produce.

Against the English

KJV's 'thinketh' (and NASB's 'thinks') is a general word for mental activity. That opens the door to reading the verse as a principle about thought shaping character. BSB, ESV, NIV, WEB and NLT keep the money sense: 'counting the cost', 'calculating', 'thinking about the cost'.

How it drifted

In 1611 'think' was a fair general guess for a rare word. Once the clause was lifted out of its context, 'thinketh' became the hinge of a self-improvement reading (see popular_drift).

Used elsewhere in the period

Gen 26:12 has the noun meaning 'measure'. The Mishnah (e.g. Bava Metzia 5:7) uses šaʿar for the set market price. Related words in Aramaic and Syriac mean to estimate or value. The Septuagint read different vowels and got 'hair' (see textual notes).

Where it appears

Proverbs · 1

  1. Proverbs 23:7 שָׁעַ֥ר he calculates

    for he is keeping track, inwardly counting the cost. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

    Here: The verb appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. Related words mean 'measure' or 'market price', so the picture is a man tallying the cost of what you eat. The meaning is disputed (see debates).

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