שְׂרֵפָה
se.re.phah (H8316)
fire
AI Word Study
# Śərēphāh: Fire in Ancient Hebrew The Hebrew word śərēphāh (Strong's H8316) carries the straightforward meaning of "fire" and appears 13 times throughout the biblical text. This relatively modest frequency suggests it functioned as a specialized or contextually significant term rather than the most common everyday word for fire in biblical Hebrew. Its limited but consistent presence indicates it held particular importance in specific narrative or liturgical contexts. Without access to the individual passages where śərēphāh appears, we cannot determine whether it was used primarily for literal destructive fire, metaphorical applications, or ritual burning practices. However, its designation as a distinct lexical entry—rather than being subsumed under a more general term—implies biblical writers chose this particular word for reasons that mattered to their meaning. The 13 occurrences distributed across biblical literature suggest the word was recognized and preserved by multiple scribal traditions, indicating it conveyed something specific enough to warrant its own place in Hebrew vocabulary. Understanding śərēphāh requires examining its actual textual contexts, which would reveal whether it carried specialized connotations—perhaps relating to divine judgment, purification, or destruction—that distinguished it from synonymous terms for fire. The lemma's existence as a separate entry in the lexicon demonstrates that ancient Hebrew distinguished nuances among words we might translate identically in English.
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and to Ithamar, his sons, “Don’t let the hair of your heads go loose, and don’t tear your clothes, so that you don’t die, and so that he will not be angry with all the congregation; but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which Yahweh has kindled.
“Speak to Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, that he take up the censers out of the burning, and scatter the fire away from the camp; for they are holy,
The priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the middle of the burning of the heifer.
“For the unclean, they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin offering; and running water shall be poured on them in a vessel.
that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.
They buried him in his own tomb, which he had dug out for himself in David’s city, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odors and various kinds of spices prepared by the perfumers’ art; and they made a very great fire for him.
In process of time, at the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness, and he died of severe diseases. His people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers.
For all the armor of the armed man in the noisy battle, and the garments rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire.
Our holy and our beautiful house where our fathers praised you is burned with fire. All our pleasant places are laid waste.
“Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain,” says Yahweh, “which destroys all the earth. I will stretch out my hand on you, roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burned mountain.
“I have overthrown some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.