avar · pass, cross over

What it means

avar (עָבַר) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “pass, cross over”.

Pass by, pass through, cross over; also go beyond, transgress (a command). In the causative form, make pass, bring across, take away.

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. To get over a river, or go through a land.
2. To pass, be gone; "pass over" a wrong is to forgive it.
3. To break a covenant or command.
4. To bring across, or take away.
5. To be filled with an anger that overflows, like a river leaving its bed.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

Pass, cross. BDB notes that it is used very widely for any passing from one side to the other, literal or figurative. From the same root is עֵבֶר, “the other side”.

• To cross a river: the Jordan Joshua 1:2Joshua 3:17
• To go through a land; to pass by a place Genesis 12:6Exodus 12:12
• To transgress a covenant or a command: to disobey it Joshua 7:11Deuteronomy 17:2
• To pass over a wrong: to forgive it Micah 7:18
• To make (a child) pass through the fire 2 Kings 16:3

Historical and cultural background

The law forbids anyone “who makes pass his son or his daughter through the fire” (Deuteronomy 18:10); 2 Kings 16:3 tells it of Ahaz as a practice of the nations.

How we translate it

“Pass” 146 times, “passed” 98, “cross” 54, “crossed” 53, “passes” 34. For the Jordan it is translated “cross”; for the covenant or the commandments, “transgress” (Joshua 7:11). “Passing over transgression” (Micah 7:18) keeps the image of the verb.

How it is translated

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

• pass ×146
• passed ×98
• cross ×54
• crossed ×53
• passes ×34
• passing ×30
• are crossing ×14
• crossing ×13
• transgressed ×7
• brought ×6
• others ×101

Related words

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

Where it appears

• Genesis×24
• Exodus×15
• Leviticus×5
• Numbers×37
• Deuteronomy×49
• Joshua×57
• Judges×23
• Ruth×2
• 1 Samuel×26
• 2 Samuel×48
• 1 Kings×12
• 2 Kings×18
• 1 Chronicles×4
• 2 Chronicles×12
• Ezra×2
• Nehemiah×5
• Esther×7
• Job×17
• Psalms×33
• Proverbs×15
• Ecclesiastes×1
• Song of Songs×5
• Isaiah×34
• Jeremiah×28
• Lamentations×4
• Ezekiel×36
• Daniel×4
• Hosea×3
• Joel×1
• Amos×6
• Jonah×2
• Micah×6
• Nahum×4
• Habakkuk×2
• Zephaniah×3
• Zechariah×6

• Genesis 8:1

  And Elohim remembered Noah and all the animals and all the livestock that were with him in the ark; and Elohim made a wind pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.

• Genesis 12:6

  Abram passed through the land as far as the place of Shechem, as far as the oak of Moreh. The Canaanites were then in the land.

• Genesis 15:17

  When the sun had gone down and it was dark, look, a smoking oven and a torch of fire that passed between these pieces.

• Genesis 18:3

  He said, “Adonai, if I have found favor in your eyes, please do not pass by your servant.

• Genesis 18:5

  And I will bring a morsel of bread, and refresh your hearts; after that you may go on, since that is why you have come by your servant.” They said, “Do so, as you have said.”

• Genesis 23:16

  Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current among the merchants.

• Genesis 30:32

  Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from there every animal speckled and spotted, and every dark animal among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and such will be my wages.

• Genesis 31:21

  He fled, he and all that he had; he rose, crossed the River, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.

• Genesis 31:52

  This heap is a witness, and the standing stone is a witness, that I will not pass beyond this heap to you, and you will not pass beyond this heap and this standing stone to me, for harm.

• Genesis 32:10

  I am too small for all the acts of loyal love and all the faithfulness that you have shown your servant; for with my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.

• Genesis 32:16

  He put them in the hand of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me, and put a space between herd and herd.”

• Genesis 32:21

  So the gift passed on ahead of him, while he spent the night that night in the camp.

• Genesis 32:22

  He rose that night and took his two wives, his two slave women, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

• Genesis 32:23

  He took them and sent them across the stream, and he sent across what he had.

• Genesis 32:31

  The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, and he was limping because of his hip.

• Genesis 33:3

  He himself passed on ahead of them and bowed down to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.

• Genesis 33:14

  Please let my lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly, at the pace of the livestock that is ahead of me and at the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”

• Genesis 37:28

  Then Midianite men, traders, passed by; and they drew and lifted Joseph out of the cistern and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver; and they brought Joseph to Egypt.

• Genesis 41:46

  Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and passed through all the land of Egypt.

• Genesis 47:21

  And as for the people, he moved them into the cities, from one end of the territory of Egypt to the other end.

• Genesis 50:4

  When the days of weeping for him had passed, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

• Exodus 12:12

  I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both people and animals; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am YHWH.

• Exodus 12:23

  For YHWH will pass through to strike Egypt; and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, YHWH will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

• Exodus 13:12

  you shall dedicate to YHWH every first offspring of the womb, and every first offspring of the young of animals that you have; the males shall be YHWH’s.

• Exodus 15:16

  Terror and dread fell upon them; by the greatness of your arm they were as still as a stone, until your people, YHWH, passed by, until the people whom you acquired passed by.

• Exodus 17:5

  YHWH said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and your staff, with which you struck the Nile, take in your hand, and go.

• Exodus 30:13

  This they shall give, everyone who passes over to those numbered: half a shekel, by the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as a contribution to YHWH.

• Exodus 30:14

  Everyone who passes over to those numbered, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the contribution of YHWH.

• Exodus 32:27

  And he said to them, “Thus says YHWH, Elohim of Israel: ‘Each man, put his sword on his side; pass through and return from gate to gate in the camp, and kill, each man, his brother, and each man his companion, and each man his relative.’”

• Exodus 33:19

  And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of YHWH before you; and I will favor whom I favor, and I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.”

• Exodus 33:22

  And it will be, when my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

• Exodus 34:6

  And YHWH passed by before him and proclaimed, “YHWH, YHWH, an El merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness,

• Exodus 36:6

  So Moses commanded, and they made a proclamation pass through the camp, saying, “Let no man or woman do any more work for the contribution of the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing.

• Exodus 38:26

  a beka per head, half a shekel, by the shekel of the sanctuary, for everyone who passed over to those counted, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty.

• Leviticus 18:21

  And you shall not give any of your offspring to make them pass over to Molech, and you shall not profane the name of your Elohim. I am YHWH.

• Leviticus 25:9

  Then you shall sound the horn of acclamation in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month; on the Day of Expiation you shall sound the horn throughout all your land.

• Leviticus 26:6

  And I will give peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid; and I will remove harmful animals from the land, and the sword will not pass through your land.

• Leviticus 27:32

  And every tithe of the herd or of the flock, all that passes under the rod, the tenth shall be holy to YHWH.

• Numbers 5:14

  and a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife, and she has made herself unclean; or a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not made herself unclean,

• Numbers 5:30

  or when a spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he is jealous of his wife; then he shall set the woman before YHWH, and the priest shall carry out for her all this instruction.

And 516 more times.