To flow freely (as water), i.e. (specifically) to have a (sexual) flux ; figuratively, to waste away; also to overflow
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The Hebrew verb zub describes flowing or gushing. It appears in the familiar description of a land flowing with milk and honey, in poetry about water gushing from rock, and in legal material concerning bodily discharges.
Reader summary
Full entry for זוּב (H2100) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew verb zub describes flowing or gushing. It appears in the familiar description of a land flowing with milk and honey, in poetry about water gushing from rock, and in legal material concerning bodily discharges.
The BSB source-word alignment has 42 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include flowing (16), the man with the discharge (5), gushed out (3), a discharge (2), a land flowing (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 3:8. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (16), Deuteronomy (6), Numbers (5), Exodus (4).
The Hebrew verb zub describes flowing or gushing. It appears in the familiar description of a land flowing with milk and honey, in poetry about water gushing from rock, and in legal material concerning bodily discharges. The shared idea is flow, but the substances, bodies, genres, and covenant functions are not interchangeable. Leviticus gives procedures for male and female discharges, while Numbers regulates temporary camp access for people in specified conditions.
These texts do not teach that bodies are shameful, that every discharge is sinful, or that a ritual category supplies a modern diagnosis. Some conditions may reflect ordinary physiology and others illness, but the ancient text must not be made to decide a clinical question it does not answer. Land and water uses communicate abundance or miraculous provision without sexualizing the image.
Responsible teaching uses calm, non-graphic language, preserves personal dignity and privacy, and separates ritual status from moral guilt. It encourages appropriate medical care for concerning symptoms and rejects stigma, blame, coercive examination, or promises that prayer replaces diagnosis and treatment.
Zub describes bodily discharge, a land flowing with abundance, and water gushing from rock. Substance and literary setting distinguish ritual regulation, promise, and provision.
“Say to the Israelites, ‘When any man has a bodily discharge, the discharge is unclean.
The Lord gives Israel procedures for a man with a bodily discharge and the resulting ritual status.
When a woman has a discharge consisting of blood from her body, she will be unclean due to her menstruation for seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.
The chapter addresses a woman's menstrual discharge and defines a limited period of ritual uncleanness.
If a descendant of Aaron has a skin disease or a discharge, he may not eat the sacred offerings until he is clean. Whoever touches anything defiled by a corpse or by a man who has an emission of semen,
A priest with a specified discharge temporarily refrains from eating holy offerings until cleansed.
“Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone with a skin disease, anyone who has a bodily discharge, and anyone who is defiled by a dead body.
Israel is told to place people with specified ritual conditions outside the camp for that period.
I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
The Lord promises to bring His oppressed people to a spacious land flowing with milk and honey.
When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”
The psalm recalls water gushing from the struck rock while questioning provision in the wilderness.
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. Denotes involuntary bodily discharge causing ritual impurity; figuratively, depletion or wasteful loss.
Denotes involuntary bodily discharge causing ritual impurity; figuratively, depletion or wasteful loss.
to flow freely (as water), i.e. (specifically) to have a (sexual) flux; figuratively, to waste away; also to overflow BDB: flow Usage: flow, gush out, have a (running) issue, pine away, run.
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.
זוּב 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.
Zub provides ordinary vocabulary for flow across very different contexts. Leviticus 15 speaks directly about bodily discharges and gives Israel time-bound washing, waiting, and offering procedures. The chapter distinguishes cases and durations, but it does not permit readers to despise bodies or assume that every condition results from sexual wrongdoing. Numbers places several ritual conditions under camp regulations, a covenant arrangement that should not be imported as a policy of isolating modern patients, menstruating women, disabled people, or anyone with a chronic condition.
Exodus uses the same root in a promise of a fruitful land, and Psalm 78 describes water gushing from rock. Those images concern abundance and provision, not anatomy. Faithful teaching maintains these boundaries while acknowledging that bodily symptoms can require care. Unusual, painful, persistent, or worrying discharge should be discussed privately with a qualified clinician, not publicly diagnosed from a sermon.
The church can support access to care, sanitation, and dignity without offering speculative causes. Ritual uncleanness is not a verdict on salvation, character, attractiveness, marital worth, or God's love.
Lev.15.2
Zub is a Hebrew verb meaning to flow, gush, or issue. Its subject may be land, water, or a bodily discharge, so substance, source, verbal form, and genre are essential for selecting a non-misleading English rendering.
New Testament healing and purity passages engage bodily conditions through their own words and covenant setting, while Revelation also uses abundant water imagery. Canonical comparison should not erase Israel's specific procedures or turn modern symptoms into biblical labels.