The south (from its drought); specifically, the Negeb or southern district of Judah, occasionally, Egypt (as south to Palestine)
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through theConnect page. Screenshots are helpful.
H5045 names the south or southern side and also serves as the geographic name Negev for the dry southern region associated with Judah. Some occurrences point to a direction in architecture or travel, while others identify an actual district with towns, inhabitants, conflict, drought, and hoped-for restoration.
Reader summary
Full entry for נֶגֶב (H5045) · Open the biblical lexicon
H5045 names the south or southern side and also serves as the geographic name Negev for the dry southern region associated with Judah. Some occurrences point to a direction in architecture or travel, while others identify an actual district with towns, inhabitants, conflict, drought, and hoped-for restoration.
The BSB source-word alignment has 112 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the Negev (13), in the Negev (10), south (10), of the Negev (8), of the South (8).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 12:9. Its strongest book concentrations include Joshua (27), Ezekiel (15), Daniel (12), Numbers (10).
H5045 names the south or southern side and also serves as the geographic name Negev for the dry southern region associated with Judah. Some occurrences point to a direction in architecture or travel, while others identify an actual district with towns, inhabitants, conflict, drought, and hoped-for restoration. English readers should notice when a translation says south and when it preserves Negev, because the same Hebrew form can function directionally or as a regional name.
In Gen. 12. 9, Abram journeys toward the Negev as his movement through the promised land continues. In Jer. 13. 19, the cities of the Negev are shut and Judah is carried into exile, making the southern region a concrete witness to national judgment. In Ps. 126. 4, worshipers ask the Lord to restore their captives like streams in the Negev, drawing hope from sudden watercourses transforming an arid landscape.
H5045 opens teaching on place, dryness, judgment, and renewal while keeping geography from dissolving into abstraction. It corrects the notion that south always symbolizes blessing, dryness, or Egypt and guards against romanticizing the Negev as only a devotional metaphor. The region’s physical character can nourish poetic comparison, but the people, history, and land named in a passage remain real.
H5045 moves between directional south, a structural south side, and the Negev as a named region. Narratives locate journeys and battles there, prophets announce judgment on its cities, and poetry draws on its arid channels for restoration imagery. The word’s geographic specificity supports, rather than competes with, theological reading.
And Abram journeyed on toward the Negev.
Abram continues his journey toward the Negev after building altars and calling on the name of the Lord within the land God promised to show him.
The cities of the Negev have been shut tight, and no one can open them. All Judah has been carried into exile, wholly taken captive.
Jeremiah announces that the Negev’s cities are shut with no one to open them and that all Judah has been carried into exile.
Restore our captives, O Lord, like streams in the Negev.
The returning community asks the Lord to restore its captives like streams in the Negev, using the region’s sudden water flow as an image of renewing reversal.
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. Directional term rooted in aridity; specifically Judah's southern desert region, occasionally Egypt when viewed from Palestinian perspective.
Directional term rooted in aridity; specifically Judah's southern desert region, occasionally Egypt when viewed from Palestinian perspective.
the south (from its drought); specifically, the Negeb or southern district of Judah, occasionally, Egypt (as south to Palestine) BDB: south-country Usage: south (country, side, -ward).
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H5045 ties direction to a remembered landscape. Abram’s movement toward the Negev belongs to an unfinished pilgrimage through the land of promise, not to a formula that every southern journey is faithful. Jeremiah’s closed Negev cities embody the reach of Judah’s exile, showing that remote or fortified places cannot escape covenant judgment. Psalm 126 turns the region’s dry channels into a prayer for restoration: water can transform the landscape with surprising force, just as the community asks the Lord to renew its fortunes.
These passages allow the Negev’s dryness to carry poetic power without reducing the place to a symbol. People lived there, cities stood there, armies crossed it, and worshipers knew its seasons. God’s work is equally concrete. He leads, judges, gathers, and renews communities in actual history. H5045 therefore teaches readers to respect geography and genre together.
A direction is not a destiny, an arid region is not proof of spiritual failure, and a restoration image is not a guaranteed timetable. The south or Negev receives its theological function from the event and speech in which it appears.
Ps.126.4
H5045 is a Hebrew noun used for south or the southern side and as the regional designation Negev. The connection with a dry southern landscape can support imagery, but syntax, translation, and geographic context determine whether the directional or place-name sense is primary.
The canon carries forward the themes of pilgrimage, exile, gathering, and creation’s renewal into the saving work of Christ and the hope of a restored world. Those themes connect with the Negev passages at the storyline level. They do not make every New Testament reference to south, wilderness, or water a lexical continuation of H5045.