Bible word study

Shaa (Strong’s H8173): Meaning in the Bible

Shaa (שָׁעַע) is the Hebrew word numbered H8173 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as (in a good acceptation) to look upon (with complacency), i.e. fondle, please or amuse (self); (in a bad one) to look about (in dismay), i.e. stare. In the King James Bible it is translated cry (out) (by confusion with H7768), dandle, delight (self), play, shut..

• Original wordשָׁעַע
• Transliterationshâʻaʻ
• Pronunciationshaw-ah'
• Part of speechverb (v)
• Strong’s numberH8173
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. a primitive root;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Shaa appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Shaa (H8173) stands behind 9 English renderings in 8 verses across 2 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Isaiah (5), Psalms (4).

How the King James Bible renders Shaa, by count

• delight4 of 9 (44 percent)
• cry1 of 9 (11 percent)
• dandled1 of 9 (11 percent)
• out1 of 9 (11 percent)
• play1 of 9 (11 percent)
• shut1 of 9 (11 percent)

Three places to read Shaa

• Psalms 94:19 In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.
• Psalms 119:47 And I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved.
• Isaiah 11:8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.

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 Shaa 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.

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