To turn aside (especially for lodging); hence to be a foreigner , strange , profane ; specifically (active participle) to commit adultery
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H2114 belongs to a Hebrew lexical family that marks something or someone as outside a particular relationship, authorization, allegiance, or expected belonging. Its common derived adjective forms can describe unauthorized fire, a person outside priestly service, a foreign god, another person's household, or a person outside a given circle.
Reader summary
Full entry for זוּר (H2114) · Open the biblical lexicon
H2114 belongs to a Hebrew lexical family that marks something or someone as outside a particular relationship, authorization, allegiance, or expected belonging. Its common derived adjective forms can describe unauthorized fire, a person outside priestly service, a foreign god, another person's household, or a person outside a given circle.
The BSB source-word alignment has 77 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Foreigners (6), strangers (6), of foreigners (4), outsider (4), unauthorized (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 29:33. Its strongest book concentrations include Proverbs (14), Isaiah (10), Ezekiel (8), Numbers (8).
H2114 belongs to a Hebrew lexical family that marks something or someone as outside a particular relationship, authorization, allegiance, or expected belonging. Its common derived adjective forms can describe unauthorized fire, a person outside priestly service, a foreign god, another person's household, or a person outside a given circle. Verbal forms can describe people turning away, becoming estranged, or being treated as strangers. The English words foreign, strange, outsider, unauthorized, and estranged therefore do not carry one fixed moral judgment. The governing question is always: outside which relationship, boundary, office, or loyalty, and why?
The Torah uses this family for concrete covenant and sanctuary boundaries. Nadab and Abihu offer fire the Lord did not command. Priestly food and tabernacle service have assigned participants and responsibilities. These passages concern holy office and authorized worship; they do not establish lesser human worth for people from another family or nation. Deuteronomy and the Psalms can call rival deities foreign because Israel's worship belongs to the Lord. Proverbs applies the family to financial liability, another household's resources, and seductive speech that violates marital fidelity. In those sayings, the warning concerns unfaithful access, concealed obligation, or imprudent surety, not ethnic hostility.
The prophets and laments turn the language inward. Isaiah says Judah has turned away from the Holy One, Ezekiel says Israel's hearts are estranged through idols, Job experiences abandonment by people who knew him, and the psalmist becomes a stranger to his own brothers. H2114 can therefore expose alienation created by sin, grief, betrayal, or failed belonging. Pastoral use should specify the relation at stake, resist treating immigrants or unfamiliar people as morally suspect, and refuse to weaponize sanctuary texts against welcome, safety, or equal dignity. The word is strongest when it helps readers name broken allegiance and unauthorized practice without confusing social difference with guilt.
H2114 ranges across unauthorized worship, defined priestly and tabernacle roles, rival allegiance, relational estrangement, abandonment, marital unfaithfulness, financial liability, and the pain of being treated as an outsider.
Now Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense, and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to His command.
The fire is unauthorized because it is contrary to the Lord's command. The issue is worship offered outside divine instruction, not the ethnic origin of the worshipers.
No one outside a priest’s family may eat the sacred offering, nor may the guest of a priest or his hired hand eat it.
The adjective identifies someone outside the household qualification for a specific sacred meal. The boundary concerns priestly stewardship and cannot be generalized into a verdict on a guest's dignity.
Whenever the tabernacle is to move, the Levites are to take it down, and whenever it is to be pitched, the Levites are to set it up. Any outsider who goes near it must be put to death.
The outsider is anyone not assigned to this dangerous tabernacle duty. The severity belongs to Israel's holy-space order and warns appointed leaders as well as the wider community.
They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.
Foreign describes rival gods that displace covenant allegiance to the Lord. The song condemns idolatry, not foreign-born neighbors as a class.
He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.
A verbal form portrays Job's known companions becoming alienated from him. The word gives language to social abandonment within suffering rather than blaming an unfamiliar outsider.
I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother’s sons,
The lament names exclusion inside the speaker's own family. It invites attention to the pain of rejected belonging and to the zeal and reproach described by the surrounding psalm.
There must be no strange god among you, nor shall you bow to a foreign god.
The adjective modifies a rival deity. Israel's exclusive worship of the Lord is in view, so the verse must not be detached into suspicion of foreign people.
It will rescue you from the forbidden woman, from the stranger with seductive words
Proverbs depicts speech drawing a learner outside covenant and marital faithfulness. Forbidden describes the relationship and conduct; it is not evidence that a woman's ethnicity makes her dangerous.
Lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.
The warning follows sexual unfaithfulness and describes the transfer of a household's strength and labor to others. It is a consequence image, not a ban on generosity or hospitality.
He who puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer, but the one who hates indebtedness is secure.
The proverb cautions against assuming another person's debt without sound knowledge or limits. It teaches financial prudence, not indifference to people in need.
Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who act corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.
The verbal form describes Judah's active turning away from the Holy One. Estrangement here is covenant rebellion by insiders, not foreign identity.
So that I may take hold of the hearts of the people of Israel. For because of their idols, they are all estranged from Me.’
Idols have alienated Israel's own heart from the Lord. The prophet locates estrangement in divided allegiance and calls for repentance among the covenant people.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Fundamental sense of turning aside or away creates spectrum: spatial alienation (foreigner) through moral estrangement (adultery, profaneness).
Fundamental sense of turning aside or away creates spectrum: spatial alienation (foreigner) through moral estrangement (adultery, profaneness).
to turn aside (especially for lodging); hence to be a foreigner, strange, profane; specifically (active participle) to commit adultery BDB: be a stranger Usage: (come from) another (man, place), fanner, go away, (e-) strange(-r, thing, woman).
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 77 lexical occurrence verses.
זוּר is a primitive root - no further derivation.
The risk is heightened when financial pledges involve unknown individuals.Hosea 5:1-7
The term symbolizes temptation that violates covenant faithfulness.Proverbs 11:15
The imagery emphasizes that immoral behavior can benefit outsiders while damaging one's own life and household.Proverbs 5:1-6
Symbolizes covenant unfaithfulness.Proverbs 5:7-14
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H2114 does not divide humanity into inherently safe insiders and suspect outsiders. Its forms map the edge of a specified relationship. In sanctuary texts, the edge protects an entrusted holy office and obedience to God's command. In covenant songs and prophets, strange gods and estranged hearts expose Israel's own disloyalty. In Job and the Psalms, the person who becomes strange is the suffering insider abandoned by family and acquaintances.
Proverbs uses the same family for unauthorized intimacy, another household's wealth, and imprudent financial surety. These uses require relational precision. The church should be able to oppose idolatry, abuse of office, sexual betrayal, and reckless liability while welcoming the stranger, honoring equal dignity, and examining its own capacity to estrange wounded people.
The lexical family presses teaching toward accountable belonging rather than fear of difference.
Ezek.14.5
The canonical registry identifies H2114 under the lemma זוּר and normalizes it as an adjective, while the governed morphology also attests Qal, Niphal, and Hophal verbal forms within the same Strong's boundary. Frequent adjective forms include זָר, zār, and feminine זָרָה, zārāh. The reviewed lemma-form transliteration is zûr, not the selected artifact's zar, which reflects a derived surface form.
English renderings vary among unauthorized, foreign, strange, outsider, another, abandoned, turned away, and estranged according to grammar and relationship.
Israel's Scriptures distinguish holy-office boundaries, covenant estrangement, household fidelity, and the duty to love the sojourner. In the New Testament, Jesus identifies Himself with the stranger who is welcomed, the church becomes a household in which former strangers are fellow citizens, and hospitality is commanded. Those themes answer ethnic or social misuse of H2114 without erasing the Hebrew passages' particular boundaries.