Bible word study

Naar (Strong’s H5288): Meaning in the Bible

Naar (נַעַר) is the Hebrew word numbered H5288 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as (concretely) a boy (as active), from the age of infancy to adolescence; by implication, a servant; also (by interch. of sex), a girl (of similar latitude in age). In the King James Bible it is translated babe, boy, child, damsel (from the margin), lad.

• Original wordנַעַר
• Transliterationnaʻar
• Pronunciationnah'-ar
• Part of speechnoun (masculine) (n-m)
• Strong’s numberH5288
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from H5287;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Naar appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Naar (H5288) stands behind 238 English renderings in 221 verses across 24 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in 1 Samuel (59), Genesis (27), 2 Samuel (26).

How the King James Bible renders Naar, by count

• child44 of 238 (18 percent)
• men40 of 238 (17 percent)
• man37 of 238 (16 percent)
• lad32 of 238 (13 percent)
• servant32 of 238 (13 percent)
• servants22 of 238 (9 percent)

Three places to read Naar

• Genesis 14:24 Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.
• 1 Samuel 9:3 And the asses of Kish Saul’s father were lost. And Kish said to Saul his son, Take now one of the servants with thee, and arise, go seek the asses.
• 2 Kings 2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Naar in the original Hebrew lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

Related words