rishon · first

What it means

rishon (רִאשׁוֹן) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “first”.

In place, time or rank; former.

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. What comes ahead in order or in time; the first.
2. What already happened or existed before, in past times.
3. First in rank.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

First, in place, time or order; hence what came before, the former. Related to רֹאשׁ, “head”.

• The first month Genesis 8:13Exodus 12:18
• “I {am} the first, and I {am} the last” Isaiah 44:6
• “The former things”: what came before Isaiah 43:18
• Like the first tablets; the former glory of the house Exodus 34:1Haggai 2:3

How we translate it

“First” 138 times, “former” 30, “beginning” 4, “chief” 2, “forefathers” 2… In Isaiah 40–48 it is “the former things”, set against the new things that YHWH announces.

How it is translated

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

• first ×138
• former ×30
• beginning ×4
• chief ×2
• forefathers ×2
• Long ago ×1
• ancestors ×1
• formerly ×1
• lead ×1
• old ×1
• others ×1

Related words

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

Where it appears

• Genesis×10
• Exodus×11
• Leviticus×9
• Numbers×13
• Deuteronomy×12
• Joshua×5
• Judges×4
• Ruth×1
• 1 Samuel×2
• 2 Samuel×6
• 1 Kings×5
• 2 Kings×3
• 1 Chronicles×13
• 2 Chronicles×16
• Ezra×6
• Nehemiah×3
• Esther×3
• Job×2
• Psalms×2
• Proverbs×2
• Ecclesiastes×2
• Isaiah×19
• Jeremiah×10
• Ezekiel×5
• Daniel×6
• Hosea×1
• Joel×1
• Micah×1
• Haggai×2
• Zechariah×7

• Genesis 8:13

  And it happened in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, that the waters dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and look, the face of the ground had dried.

• Genesis 13:4

  to the place of the altar that he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of YHWH.

• Genesis 25:25

  The first came out reddish, all of him like a cloak of hair, and they called his name Esau.

• Genesis 26:1

  There was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that there was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

• Genesis 28:19

  He called the name of that place Bethel, but Luz was the name of the city at first.

• Genesis 32:17

  He commanded the first, saying, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, saying, ‘Whose are you, and where are you going, and whose are these ahead of you?’

• Genesis 33:2

  He put the slave women and their children first, Leah and her children after them, and Rachel and Joseph last.

• Genesis 38:28

  While she was giving birth, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.”

• Genesis 40:13

  Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, after the former manner when you were his cupbearer.

• Genesis 41:20

  The lean and ugly cows ate up the first seven fat cows.

• Exodus 4:8

  “And it will be that if they do not believe you or listen to the voice of the first sign, they will believe the voice of the latter sign.

• Exodus 12:2

  “This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first for you of the months of the year.

• Exodus 12:15

  Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. Indeed, on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats anything leavened, that person shall be cut off from Israel, from the first day until the seventh day.

• Exodus 12:16

  On the first day a holy convocation, and on the seventh day a holy convocation you shall have. No work shall be done on them; only what is eaten by every person, that alone may be done by you.

• Exodus 12:18

  In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month, in the evening.

• Exodus 34:1

  And YHWH said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

• Exodus 34:4

  So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones; and Moses rose early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai, as YHWH had commanded him, and he took in his hand two tablets of stone.

• Exodus 40:2

  “On the day of the first month, on the first day of the month, you shall set up the dwelling, the tent of meeting.

• Exodus 40:17

  And it happened in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the dwelling was set up.

• Leviticus 4:21

  He shall bring the bull to outside the camp and burn it just as he burned the first bull; it is the sin offering of the assembly.

• Leviticus 5:8

  He shall bring them to the priest, and he shall present the one that is for the sin offering first, and wring its head at the back of its neck, but he shall not divide it.

• Leviticus 9:15

  He presented the offering of the people, took the goat of the sin offering that was for the people, slaughtered it, and offered it for sin like the first.

• Leviticus 23:5

  In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, is the Passover of YHWH.

• Leviticus 23:7

  On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work at all.

• Leviticus 23:35

  On the first day is a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work at all.

• Leviticus 23:39

  But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of YHWH seven days; on the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest.

• Leviticus 23:40

  And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before YHWH your Elohim seven days.

• Leviticus 26:45

  But I will remember for them the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their Elohim. I am YHWH.

• Numbers 2:9

  All those counted of the camp of Judah are one hundred eighty-six thousand four hundred, by their armies. They shall set out first.

• Numbers 6:12

  And he shall separate to YHWH the days of his consecration and bring a male lamb a year old as a guilt offering; but the former days shall fall away, because his consecration was made unclean.

• Numbers 7:12

  The one who presented his offering on the first day was Nahshon son of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah.

• Numbers 9:1

  And YHWH spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the second year after they came out of the land of Egypt, in the first month, saying,

• Numbers 9:5

  And they kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that YHWH had commanded Moses, so the sons of Israel did.

• Numbers 10:13

  So they set out for the first time according to the command of YHWH through Moses.

• Numbers 10:14

  And the banner of the camp of the sons of Judah set out first by their armies, and over its army was Nahshon son of Amminadab.

• Numbers 20:1

  And the sons of Israel, the whole community, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh; and Miriam died there and was buried there.

• Numbers 21:26

  For Heshbon was the city of Sihon king of the Amorites, and he had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon.

• Numbers 28:16

  In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, is the Passover to YHWH.

• Numbers 28:18

  On the first day there shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work.

• Numbers 33:3

  They set out from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the day after the Passover the sons of Israel went out with a raised hand before the eyes of all Egypt,

And 142 more times.