Properly, to creak (or emit a stridulous sound), i.e. to shout (usually for joy)
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H7442, rānan, is a Hebrew verb for crying aloud, singing out, or raising a ringing voice, often in joy. It can describe a congregation shouting and falling facedown when the LORD's glory appears, watchmen lifting their voices together at news of Zion's redemption, the earth acclaiming God's salvation, and restored Jerusalem rejoicing because the LORD is present.
Reader summary
Full entry for רָנַן (H7442) · Open the biblical lexicon
H7442, rānan, is a Hebrew verb for crying aloud, singing out, or raising a ringing voice, often in joy. It can describe a congregation shouting and falling facedown when the LORD's glory appears, watchmen lifting their voices together at news of Zion's redemption, the earth acclaiming God's salvation, and restored Jerusalem rejoicing because the LORD is.
The BSB source-word alignment has 54 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include shout for joy (8), sing for joy (5), will shout for joy (4), and sing (2), cry out (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Leviticus 9:24. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (26), Isaiah (14), Jeremiah (3), Proverbs (3).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
H7442, rānan, is a Hebrew verb for crying aloud, singing out, or raising a ringing voice, often in joy. It can describe a congregation shouting and falling facedown when the Lord's glory appears, watchmen lifting their voices together at news of Zion's redemption, the earth acclaiming God's salvation, and restored Jerusalem rejoicing because the Lord is present. The word makes joy audible, but it does not reduce praise to noise or require every worshiper to express faith with the same volume. The voice answers a perceived reality: God's glory, rescue, righteousness, return, or renewing presence.
The verb's vocal force can also carry distress. Lamentations commands Jerusalem to cry out at night, pour out her heart, and lift her hands for children fainting from hunger. Psalm 51 asks that a bloodguilty tongue be enabled to sing of God's righteousness after deliverance and repentance. The same capacity to ring out can therefore serve acclamation, lament, petition, and restored praise. Loudness does not settle the spiritual meaning. A shout may arise from joy, anguish, warning, or a poetic picture of creation. Pastoral interpretation must listen to the sentence and situation instead of treating every occurrence as exuberant celebration.
H7442 also connects joy to neighbor care and future hope. Job remembers rescuing poor and fatherless people and making a widow's heart sing for joy. Isaiah calls a barren and desolate woman to sing because of promised enlargement, language Paul later uses within a particular covenant argument. These texts must not be turned into individual fertility guarantees, romantic pressure, or a claim that service can manufacture another person's emotion. Faithful acclamation can celebrate genuine rescue, amplify good news, voice grief before God, and invite communal hope. It should never become shouting over others, stage-driven intensity, ableist judgment, coerced enthusiasm, or a substitute for the justice and care that give joy substance.
H7442 moves across reverent acclamation, neighbor-restoring joy, night lament, redemption announced by watchmen, promised fruitfulness, repentant praise, creation's cry, and Zion's restored celebration.
Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.
The people's audible response joins joy with prostration when the Lord's glory appears and accepts the offering. Acclamation does not eliminate reverence.
The dying man blessed me, and I made the widow’s heart sing for joy.
Job locates another person's joy within remembered acts of rescuing poor, fatherless, dying, and widowed neighbors. The claim belongs to his testimony and will later stand under God's searching response.
Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.
The ringing cry becomes lament and intercession during communal catastrophe. Scripture gives anguished people permission to voice grief and plead for endangered children.
Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices, together they shout for joy. For every eye will see when the Lord returns to Zion.
Watchmen's united cry answers good news of God's reign, comfort, and redemption. Their public voice announces hope to the ruins of Jerusalem.
“Shout for joy, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth in song and cry aloud, you who have never travailed; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the Lord.
The prophetic summons promises unexpected restoration and enlargement to desolate Zion. It is not a universal guarantee of biological fertility for each reader.
Deliver me from bloodguilt, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing of Your righteousness.
The restored voice follows confession, cleansing, and a plea for deliverance from bloodguilt. Praise of righteousness must not bypass repentance or repair.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth—let your cry ring out, and sing praises!
All the earth is summoned to audible praise because God's salvation and righteousness have been revealed. The invitation is expansive, not a technical rule about volume or musical form.
Sing for joy, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem!
Zion's acclamation follows purification and precedes the promise that judgment is removed, the King is present, fear recedes, and the scattered are gathered.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Vocalized joy that erupts outward—from inner emotion to audible expression, often celebratory or triumphant
Vocalized joy that erupts outward—from inner emotion to audible expression, often celebratory or triumphant
properly, to creak (or emit a stridulous sound), i.e. to shout (usually for joy) BDB: overcome Usage: aloud for joy, cry out, be joyful (greatly, make to) rejoice, (cause to) shout (for joy), (cause to) sing (aloud, for joy, out), triumph.
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 3 selected witnesses from 53 lexical occurrence verses.
רָנַן is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H7442 gives voice to realities too weighty to remain unspoken. In Leviticus, the people shout and fall facedown before God's glory. Isaiah's watchmen raise a shared cry because the Lord returns to comfort and redeem Zion. Psalm 98 summons the earth to acclaim revealed salvation, and Zephaniah calls a purified people to rejoice in the King's presence. Yet Lamentations uses the same ringing cry for night prayer over children fainting from hunger.
Psalm 51's tongue sings only in the context of bloodguilt, confession, and requested restoration. Job connects a widow's joy to practiced justice and help. The verb therefore cannot be reduced to upbeat worship. Faithful vocal expression may celebrate, announce, lament, repent, or intercede. Churches should welcome culturally varied and ability-aware forms of participation, refuse to shout over pain, teach the reason for acclamation, and ensure that joyful claims are accompanied by care, justice, truth, and safety.
Isa.52.8
H7442 is a Hebrew verb represented across Piel, Qal, Hiphil, Pual, and Hithpolel forms in the governed morphology witness. Its semantic force involves an audible cry, shout, or ringing song, commonly joyful but not exclusively so. Lamentations 2:19 demonstrates that the voice can carry anguish and petition. Causative forms may describe causing or inviting joyful expression, but morphology does not authorize emotional control.
The exact artifact is preferred over three compound records so that the companion follows H7442 rather than blended Hebrew or cross-language pairings.
The New Testament continues audible praise and proclamation while also commanding believers to weep with those who weep. Paul applies Isaiah 54:1 within his Galatians argument about promise and freedom, not as a universal fertility prediction. Revelation's multitude acclaims salvation before God, extending the theme without establishing one required volume or worship culture.