safar · count, tell

What it means

safar (סָפַר) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “count, tell”.

Count (numbers) and also tell (relate, recount). From here comes the word for "scribe".

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 number one by one in order to know how many there are.
2. To relate, declare: the heavens proclaim the glory of El.
3. An official who writes and reads the documents of the king or the temple.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

To count, in two senses: to number and to tell; in the intensive form, to celebrate, to proclaim. BDB: to count, number; intensively, to recount, declare. The participle, סֹפֵר, is the “scribe”. From the same root come סֵפֶר, “book”, and מִסְפָּר, “number”.

• Counting the stars Genesis 15:5
• Counting the days up to the feast Leviticus 23:16
• Telling what happened Genesis 24:66
• “The heavens recount the glory of El” Psalms 19:1Psalms 22:22
• The scribe 2 Samuel 8:17Ezra 7:11

Historical and cultural background

Ezra is presented as “the priest, the scribe, a scribe of the words of the commandments of YHWH” (Ezra 7:11).

How we translate it

“Scribe” 48 times, “scribes” 6, “count” 20, “counted” 12, “be counted” 5, and “recount” 25, “recounted” 8, “told” 20, “tell” 10. English separates the two senses, “count” for numbering and “recount” or “tell” for relating, and “recount” keeps the link between them.

How it is translated

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

• scribe ×48
• recount ×25
• count ×20
• told ×20
• counted ×12
• Tell ×10
• recounted ×8
• scribes ×6
• be counted ×5
• they talk ×2
• others ×5

Related words

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

Where it appears

• Genesis×13
• Exodus×4
• Leviticus×5
• Numbers×1
• Deuteronomy×2
• Joshua×1
• Judges×3
• 1 Samuel×1
• 2 Samuel×3
• 1 Kings×5
• 2 Kings×13
• 1 Chronicles×7
• 2 Chronicles×10
• Ezra×4
• Nehemiah×7
• Esther×4
• Job×8
• Psalms×37
• Isaiah×9
• Jeremiah×17
• Ezekiel×4
• Hosea×1
• Joel×1
• Habakkuk×1

• Genesis 15:5

  He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And he said to him, “So will your offspring be.”

• Genesis 16:10

  The angel of YHWH said to her, “I will greatly multiply your offspring, so that it cannot be counted because of its multitude.”

• Genesis 24:66

  The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.

• Genesis 29:13

  When Laban heard the news of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, embraced him, kissed him, and brought him to his house. And he told Laban all these things.

• Genesis 32:12

  But you said, ‘I will surely deal well with you and make your offspring like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of its abundance.’”

• Genesis 37:9

  He dreamed yet another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream: look, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down before me.”

• Genesis 37:10

  He told it to his father and to his brothers, and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, to bow down before you to the ground?”

• Genesis 40:8

  They said to him, “We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter for it.” Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to Elohim? Please tell them to me.”

• Genesis 40:9

  So the chief of the cupbearers told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream, look, a vine was before me,

• Genesis 41:8

  In the morning his spirit was troubled, and he sent and called all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men. Pharaoh told them his dream, but there was no one who could interpret them for Pharaoh.

• Genesis 41:12

  A young man was there with us, a Hebrew, a slave of the chief of the guard. We told him, and he interpreted for us our dreams; to each according to his dream he interpreted.

• Genesis 41:49

  Joseph stored up grain like the sand of the sea, very much, until he stopped counting, for it was without number.

• Exodus 9:16

  But for this purpose I have let you stand, in order to show you my power, and so that my name may be declared in all the earth.

• Exodus 10:2

  and so that you may tell in the ears of your son and of the son of your son how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians, and my signs that I did among them, and you will know that I am YHWH.”

• Exodus 18:8

  Moses told his father-in-law all that YHWH had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for the sake of Israel, all the hardship that had come upon them on the way, and how YHWH had delivered them.

• Exodus 24:3

  Moses came and told the people all the words of YHWH and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that YHWH has spoken we will do.”

• Leviticus 15:13

  And when the man with the discharge becomes clean from his discharge, he shall count for himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his garments and bathe his body in living water, and he shall be clean.

• Leviticus 15:28

  And if she becomes clean from her discharge, she shall count for herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean.

• Leviticus 23:15

  And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven full Sabbaths they shall be.

• Leviticus 23:16

  Until the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count fifty days, and you shall present a new grain offering to YHWH.

• Leviticus 25:8

  And you shall count for yourself seven Sabbaths of years, seven years seven times, and the days of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty- nine years.

• Numbers 13:27

  And they told him, and said, “We came to the land to which you sent us, and indeed it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.

• Deuteronomy 16:9

  Seven weeks you shall count for yourself; from when the sickle is first put to the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks.

• Joshua 2:23

  Then the two men returned and came down from the hill country and crossed over and came to Joshua son of Nun, and they told him all that had happened to them.

• Judges 5:14

  From Ephraim came those whose root is in Amalek; after you, Benjamin, among your peoples. From Machir went down those who command, and from Zebulun those who carry the staff of the scribe.

• Judges 6:13

  Gideon said to him, “Pardon, my lord, if YHWH is with us, why has all this found us? And where are all his wonders that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not YHWH bring us up from Egypt?’ But now YHWH has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

• Judges 7:13

  Gideon came, and there was a man recounting a dream to his companion. He said, “Look, I dreamed a dream: there was a round loaf of barley tumbling into the camp of Midian; it came to the tent and struck it, and it fell; it turned it upside down, and the tent fell flat.”

• 1 Samuel 11:5

  And look, Saul was coming behind the oxen from the field, and Saul said, “What is wrong with the people that they are weeping?” And they told him the words of the men of Jabesh.

• 2 Samuel 8:17

  Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were priests; Seraiah was scribe;

• 2 Samuel 20:25

  Sheva was scribe; and Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

• 2 Samuel 24:10

  David’s heart struck him after he had counted the people. And David said to YHWH, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now then, YHWH, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”

• 1 Kings 3:8

  And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered or counted for multitude.

• 1 Kings 4:3

  Elihoreph and Ahijah, sons of Shisha, scribes; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud, the chronicler;

• 1 Kings 8:5

  And King Solomon and all the community of Israel who had gathered to him were with him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and cattle that could not be counted or numbered for multitude.

• 1 Kings 13:11

  Now an old prophet lived in Bethel; and his son came and told him all the deeds that the man of Elohim had done that day in Bethel; the words that he had spoken to the king, they told them to their father.

• 2 Kings 8:4

  The king was speaking to Gehazi, the young man of the man of Elohim, saying, “Tell me, please, all the great things that Elisha has done.”

• 2 Kings 8:5

  And it happened, as he was telling the king how he had restored to life the dead, that, look, the woman whose son he had restored to life was crying out to the king for her house and for her field. Gehazi said, “My lord the king, this is the woman, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.”

• 2 Kings 8:6

  The king asked the woman, and she told him. The king gave her an official, saying, “Restore all that was hers and all the produce of the field from the day she left the land until now.”

• 2 Kings 12:10

  And it happened, whenever they saw that there was much silver in the chest, that the king’s scribe and the high priest went up and tied it up and counted the silver that was found in the house of YHWH.

• 2 Kings 18:18

  They called to the king, and there came out to them Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder.

And 121 more times.