tsarar · bind, distress

What it means

tsarar (צָרַר) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “bind, distress”.

Wrap up, bind tightly. In other passages, be in distress, or treat with hostility.

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 tie or wrap something.
2. To be in a tight spot, or to leave others no way out, like a besieged city.
3. To be someone's enemy.
4. To be a rival wife to one's sister.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

Under this Strong number go two senses: to press, bind, wrap up, and hence to be in straits or distress; and to harass, to be someone’s adversary. The participle, the one who harasses, is the adversary.

• Binding, wrapping, keeping tight Exodus 12:34Isaiah 8:16Job 26:8
• Being in distress Psalms 31:92 Samuel 1:26Lamentations 1:20
• Harassing, attacking another Numbers 25:17Psalms 129:1Numbers 10:9
• The adversary Psalms 23:5Esther 3:10
• Besieging a city Deuteronomy 28:52

How we translate it

The rendering follows the two senses. As a participle, “adversaries” (11 times) and “adversary” (5): “in front of my adversaries” (Psalm 23:5), “the adversary of the Jews” (Esther 3:10). As a verb against someone, “harass” in Numbers (“Harass the Midianites”; “the adversary who harasses you”, 10:9), “attacked” in Psalm 129 (“Greatly they have attacked me”), and “bind up” or “bound up” for wrapping (Job 26:8; Exodus 12:34). When the subject suffers the straits, “I am in distress” (“distress” 11 times). In Deuteronomy 28:52 it reads “it will besiege you”, and in Leviticus 18:18, “as a rival”.

How it is translated

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

• adversaries ×11
• distress ×11
• adversary ×5
• Harass ×4
• bind up ×2
• bound ×2
• bound up ×2
• it will besiege ×2
• they have attacked me ×2
• He binds up ×1
• others ×11

Related words

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

Where it appears

• Exodus×2
• Leviticus×1
• Numbers×4
• Deuteronomy×3
• Joshua×1
• 1 Samuel×2
• 2 Samuel×2
• 1 Kings×1
• 2 Kings×1
• 2 Chronicles×2
• Esther×4
• Job×1
• Psalms×16
• Proverbs×2
• Isaiah×3
• Jeremiah×3
• Lamentations×1
• Hosea×2
• Amos×1
• Zephaniah×1

• Exodus 12:34

  So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders.

• Exodus 23:22

  But if you indeed listen to his voice and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

• Leviticus 18:18

  And you shall not take a woman in addition to her sister as a rival, uncovering her nakedness besides her while she is alive.

• Numbers 10:9

  And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who harasses you, you shall sound an acclamation with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before YHWH your Elohim, and you will be saved from your enemies.

• Numbers 25:17

  “Harass the Midianites and strike them,

• Numbers 25:18

  for they are harassing you with their deceptions with which they deceived you in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Cozbi, daughter of a chief of Midian, their sister, who was struck on the day of the plague on account of Peor.”

• Numbers 33:55

  But if you do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those whom you let remain of them shall be as barbs in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land in which you dwell.

• Deuteronomy 14:25

  then you shall turn it into silver, and bind up the silver in your hand, and go to the place that YHWH your Elohim chooses.

• Deuteronomy 28:52

  And it will besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trust, in all your land; and it will besiege you in all your gates in all your land, which YHWH your Elohim has given you.

• Joshua 9:4

  and they too acted with cunning: they went and posed as envoys, and took worn-out sacks for their donkeys, and wineskins worn-out, torn, and mended,

• 1 Samuel 25:29

  Though a man has risen to pursue you and to seek your life, yet the life of my lord will be bound in the bundle of the living with YHWH your Elohim; but the lives of your enemies he will sling out from within the hollow of the sling.

• 1 Samuel 28:15

  Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing up me?” Saul said, “I am in great distress, for the Philistines are fighting against me, and Elohim has turned away from me and no longer answers me, either by the hand of the prophets or by dreams; so I have called you to make known to me what I should do.”

• 2 Samuel 1:26

  I am in distress over you, my brother Jonathan; you were very pleasant to me; your love to me was more wonderful than the love of women.

• 2 Samuel 20:3

  David came to his house in Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women, the concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in a house under guard; he provided for them, but to them he did not go in. So they were shut up until the day of their death, in widowhood for life.

• 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;

• 2 Kings 5:23

  Naaman said, “Be pleased to take two talents.” He urged him, and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothes, and gave them to two of his young men, and they carried them before him.

• 2 Chronicles 28:22

  In the time of his distress he was even more unfaithful to YHWH, he, King Ahaz.

• 2 Chronicles 33:12

  When he was in distress, he implored the face of YHWH his Elohim, and humbled himself greatly before the Elohim of his fathers.

• Esther 3:10

  And the king removed his ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the adversary of the Jews.

• Esther 8:1

  On that day King Ahasuerus gave to Esther the queen the house of Haman, the adversary of the Jews; and Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had made known what he was to her.

• Esther 9:10

  the ten sons of Haman, son of Hammedatha, the adversary of the Jews, they killed; but on the plunder they did not stretch out their hand.

• Esther 9:24

  For Haman, son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the adversary of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to make them perish, and had cast Pur —that is, the lot— to throw them into turmoil and to make them perish.

• Job 26:8

  He binds up the waters in his clouds, and the cloud is not split beneath them.

• Psalms 6:7

  My eye has wasted away from grief; it has grown old because of all my adversaries.

• Psalms 7:4

  if I have repaid with evil the one at peace with me, I who delivered my adversary without cause,

• Psalms 7:6

  Rise up, YHWH, in your anger; lift yourself up against the rages of my adversaries, and awake for me; you have commanded judgment.

• Psalms 8:2

  From the mouth of children and of nursing infants you have founded strength because of your adversaries, to put an end to the enemy and the one who takes vengeance.

• Psalms 10:5

  His ways endure at all times; your judgments are on high, out of his sight; at all his adversaries he snorts.

• Psalms 23:5

  You lay out before me a table in front of my adversaries; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

• Psalms 31:9

  Show me favor, YHWH, for I am in distress; my eye has wasted away with grief, my soul and my belly.

• Psalms 31:11

  Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach, and to my neighbors exceedingly, and a dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.

• Psalms 42:10

  With murder in my bones my adversaries reproach me, when they say to me all the day, “Where is your Elohim?”

• Psalms 69:17

  And do not hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress; hurry, answer me.

• Psalms 69:19

  You know my reproach and my shame and my humiliation; before you are all my adversaries.

• Psalms 74:4

  Your adversaries roared in the midst of your meeting place; they set up their signs as signs.

• Psalms 74:23

  Do not forget the voice of your adversaries, the roar of those who rise up against you that goes up continually.

• Psalms 129:1

  A song of the ascents. Greatly they have attacked me from my youth— let Israel say now—

• Psalms 129:2

  greatly they have attacked me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me.

• Psalms 143:12

  And in your loyal love annihilate my enemies, and destroy all who attack my soul, for I am your servant.

• Proverbs 26:8

  Like binding a stone in a sling, so is whoever gives honor to a senseless man.

And 13 more times.