Properly, to hedge about (as with thorns), i.e. guard ; generally, to protect , attend to , etc.
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שָׁמַר (šāmar) is a Hebrew verb for keeping, guarding, watching, preserving, observing, attending to, or maintaining custody. A person can guard a garden, flock, gate, prisoner, city, object, mouth, instruction, command, festival, covenant obligation, or another person's safety.
Reader summary
Full entry for שָׁמַר (H8104) · Open the biblical lexicon
שָׁמַר (šāmar) is a Hebrew verb for keeping, guarding, watching, preserving, observing, attending to, or maintaining custody. A person can guard a garden, flock, gate, prisoner, city, object, mouth, instruction, command, festival, covenant obligation, or another person's safety.
The BSB source-word alignment has 469 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Keep (28), Be careful (22), and keep (20), kept (13), to keep (12).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 2:15. Its strongest book concentrations include Deuteronomy (73), Psalms (72), Proverbs (31), Exodus (25).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
שָׁמַר (šāmar) is a Hebrew verb for keeping, guarding, watching, preserving, observing, attending to, or maintaining custody. A person can guard a garden, flock, gate, prisoner, city, object, mouth, instruction, command, festival, covenant obligation, or another person's safety. God can keep a promise or protect a person, and worshipers can ask to be kept. The common English word 'keep' hides this variety, so every occurrence needs its object and setting.
Genesis 2:15 places the human in the garden to work and keep it, while Genesis 4:9 asks whether Cain is his brother's keeper. Torah uses H8104 for commanded practices, careful boundaries, entrusted property, priestly duties, and the Sabbath. Psalms celebrate the Lord as keeper, wisdom commends keeping instruction and guarding speech, and narratives portray guards who protect, surveil, confine, or carry out violence. Guarding is not morally good merely because H8104 is present.
God's keeping does not promise that faithful people will avoid all injury, grief, persecution, or death. Psalm 121's confidence belongs within pilgrimage and canonical trust, not a guarantee against every accident. Human guarding must also remain accountable: protection cannot become coercive control, invasive surveillance, confinement, armed vigilantism, or concealment of abuse. Institutions that claim to keep people safe must be transparent, trained, lawful, and answerable to those they serve.
H8104 appears in creation care, custody, command and festival observance, priestly service, watch posts, protection, surveillance, self-restraint, covenant faithfulness, divine keeping, and failed or abusive guardianship.
The human is placed in the garden to work it and keep or guard it, a vocation within the garden narrative.
Cain asks whether he is his brother's keeper after killing Abel, a defensive question that exposes denied responsibility.
Israel is to keep the Sabbath throughout generations as a lasting covenant practice.
The priestly blessing asks the Lord to bless and keep the people.
Israel is told to watch carefully and guard the self from forgetting what was seen, then teach it across generations.
Joab watches or observes the city so he can place Uriah where the fighting is strongest, showing guarded attention used in a murderous plan.
Israel's keeper neither slumbers nor sleeps in a pilgrimage psalm of trust.
The psalm asks who could stand if the Lord kept a record of iniquities, contrasting strict accounting with forgiveness.
Wisdom tells the learner not to let the teacher's words leave the eyes but to keep them within the heart.
The city watchmen find, strike, wound, and strip the woman, revealing guards as perpetrators rather than protectors in the poem's night scene.
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. Protective vigilance—guarding through attentive observation; foundational to covenant obedience and divine watchfulness over creation.
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 5 selected witnesses from 469 lexical occurrence verses.
שָׁמַר 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.
H8104 helps teachers connect careful attention, covenant practice, custody, and protection while testing the power hidden in guarding language. God keeps, people observe commands, workers guard gates, and individuals keep instruction and guard speech. Yet Joab watches a city to arrange Uriah's death, and the Song's watchmen assault the woman they encounter. Protection claims must therefore be judged by conduct, competence, transparency, and the experience of vulnerable people.
Genesis 2 can contribute to creation care without carrying a complete environmental ethic by itself. Psalm 121 can sustain trust without promising immunity from accident, illness, violence, or death. Churches should build safeguarding through trained teams, background checks where lawful, two-adult practices, reporting channels, privacy limits, and external accountability.
They must not confuse guarding with surveillance, isolation, forced access, weaponized secrecy, or control over another adult's movement and relationships.
Gen.2.15
H8104 can mean guard, keep, watch, preserve, observe, take heed, maintain custody, or retain. The direct object and construction are decisive. Observing a command, guarding a person, watching a city, keeping a festival, and God preserving life share a verb without becoming the same action.
New Testament keeping and guarding language develops discipleship, protection, command observance, watchfulness, and God's preservation through several Greek verbs. Those connections require direct passage study and do not make every H8104 use a promise of spiritual security.
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