dever · plague, pestilence

What it means

dever (דֶּבֶר) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “plague, pestilence”.

Pestilence: a disease that kills many in a short time.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. A disease that kills many.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

Pestilence: a disease that spreads and kills many in a short time, people or animals. In the Law and the prophets it is one of the punishments YHWH sends.

• The pestilence on the livestock of Egypt Exodus 9:3Exodus 9:15
• The pestilence in David’s time 2 Samuel 24:132 Samuel 24:15
• “By the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence” Jeremiah 21:9Ezekiel 6:11Ezekiel 14:21
• A threat of the covenant Leviticus 26:25Deuteronomy 28:21
• “Where {are} your plagues, death?” Hosea 13:14Psalms 91:3

Historical and cultural background

Jeremiah and Ezekiel repeat the series of punishments: “by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence” (Jeremiah 21:9), to which Ezekiel adds the ferocious animal (14:21). Solomon’s prayer already asked YHWH to hear “if there is pestilence” in the land (1 Kings 8:37).

How we translate it

Always “pestilence” (48 times), and once “your plagues”, in Hosea 13:14.

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• pestilence ×48
• are your plagues ×1

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Exodus×3
• Leviticus×1
• Numbers×1
• Deuteronomy×1
• 2 Samuel×2
• 1 Kings×1
• 1 Chronicles×2
• 2 Chronicles×3
• Psalms×3
• Jeremiah×17
• Ezekiel×12
• Hosea×1
• Amos×1
• Habakkuk×1

• Exodus 5:3

  They said, “The Elohim of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a journey of three days into the wilderness and sacrifice to YHWH our Elohim, or he will fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”

• Exodus 9:3

  look, the hand of YHWH will be on your livestock that are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the cattle, and on the flocks, with a very severe pestilence.

• Exodus 9:15

  For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been wiped out from the earth.

• Leviticus 26:25

  And I will bring on you a sword that avenges the vengeance of the covenant; and when you gather into your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you will be given into the hand of the enemy.

• Numbers 14:12

  I will strike them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”

• Deuteronomy 28:21

  YHWH will make the pestilence cling to you until he has consumed you from off the ground that you are entering there to possess it.

• 2 Samuel 24:13

  So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall there come to you seven years of famine in your land? Or three months that you flee before your adversaries while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days of pestilence in your land? Now consider and see what answer I shall return to the one who sent me.”

• 2 Samuel 24:15

  YHWH sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time; and there died of the people, from Dan to Beersheba, seventy thousand men.

• 1 Kings 8:37

  If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, blight, mildew, locust, or grasshopper, if there are these; if his enemy besieges him in the land of his gates; any sore, any sickness;

• 1 Chronicles 21:12

  either three years of famine, or three months of being swept away before your adversaries, with the sword of your enemies overtaking you, or three days of the sword of YHWH, that is, pestilence in the land, with the angel of YHWH destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.’ Now consider what word I should bring back to the one who sent me.”

• 1 Chronicles 21:14

  YHWH put a pestilence on Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.

• 2 Chronicles 6:28

  When there is famine in the land, when there is pestilence, when there are blight and mildew, locust and hopper; when their enemies besiege them in the land of their gates; any sore and any sickness;

• 2 Chronicles 7:13

  If I shut up the heavens and there is no rain, or if I command the grasshopper to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people,

• 2 Chronicles 20:9

  ‘If evil comes upon us —sword, judgment, or pestilence or famine— we will stand before this house and before you, for your name is in this house, and we will cry out to you from our distress, and you will hear and save.’

• Psalms 78:50

  He leveled a path for his anger; he did not hold back their soul from death, and their life to the pestilence he gave over.

• Psalms 91:3

  For he will deliver you from the snare of the hunter, from the pestilence of calamities.

• Psalms 91:6

  nor the pestilence that walks in the gloom, nor the destruction that ravages at noon.

• Jeremiah 14:12

  When they fast, I am not listening to their cry; and when they offer up burnt offering and grain offering, I do not accept them; but by the sword and by famine and by pestilence I am consuming them.”

• Jeremiah 21:6

  And I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both human being and animal; of a great pestilence they will die.

• Jeremiah 21:7

  And afterward, declares YHWH, I will give Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and he will strike them with the edge of the sword; he will not pity them, and he will not spare, and he will not have compassion.’

• Jeremiah 21:9

  He who stays in this city will die by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence; but he who goes out and falls away to the Chaldeans who are besieging you will live, and he will have his life as plunder.

• Jeremiah 24:10

  And I will send among them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, until they are finished off from the ground that I gave to them and to their fathers.”

• Jeremiah 27:8

  And it will be: the nation or the kingdom that will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, with the sword and with the famine and with the pestilence I will punish that nation, declares YHWH, until I have finished off them by his hand.

• Jeremiah 27:13

  Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as YHWH has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?

• Jeremiah 28:8

  The prophets who were before me and before you from of old prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms of war and of evil and of pestilence.

• Jeremiah 29:17

  thus says YHWH Tsevaot: Look, I am sending against them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and I will make them like the repulsive figs that cannot be eaten for badness.

• Jeremiah 29:18

  And I will pursue them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and I will make them a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth, a curse and a horror and a hissing and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them,

• Jeremiah 32:24

  Look, the siege ramps have come to the city to capture it, and the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it, because of the sword and the famine and the pestilence; and what you have spoken has happened, and look, you see it.

• Jeremiah 32:36

  And now, therefore, thus says YHWH, the Elohim of Israel, concerning this city of which you are saying, ‘It has been given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence’:

• Jeremiah 34:17

  Therefore thus says YHWH: You have not listened to me to proclaim liberty, each one to his brother and each one to his neighbor; look, I am proclaiming to you liberty, declares YHWH, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

• Jeremiah 38:2

  “Thus says YHWH: He who stays in this city will die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live; he will have his life as spoil, and he will live.

• Jeremiah 42:17

  And it will be that all the men who have set their faces to go to Egypt to reside as aliens there will die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; and they will have no survivor or fugitive from the evil that I am bringing on them.

• Jeremiah 42:22

  So now, know for certain that by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence you will die in the place where you desire to go to reside as aliens there.”

• Jeremiah 44:13

  And I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt as I punished Jerusalem, with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence.

• Ezekiel 5:12

  A third of you will die by pestilence and be consumed by famine in your midst; and a third will fall by the sword all around you; and a third to every wind I will scatter, and a sword I will unsheathe after them.

• Ezekiel 5:17

  And I will send against you famine and fierce animals, and they will bereave you; and pestilence and blood will pass through you, and the sword I will bring upon you. I, YHWH, have spoken.”

• Ezekiel 6:11

  Thus says Adonai YHWH: “Strike with your palm and stamp with your foot, and say, ‘Ah!’ over all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, who by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence will fall.

• Ezekiel 6:12

  The one who is far off will die by pestilence, and the one who is near will fall by the sword, and the one who remains and is besieged will die by famine; and I will spend my fury on them.

• Ezekiel 7:15

  The sword is outside, and pestilence and famine inside; whoever is in the field will die by the sword, and whoever is in the city, famine and pestilence will devour him.

• Ezekiel 12:16

  And I will leave of them a few men from the sword, from famine, and from pestilence, so that they may recount all their abominations among the nations where they go; and they will know that I am YHWH.”

And 9 more times.