סרר

Abarim Publications' online Biblical Hebrew Dictionary

סרר סור

The two verbs סרר (sarar) and סור (sur) are closely akin in form and are obviously related in meaning, so much even that it's not always clear from which of the two the noun סרה (sara) derives:

The verb סרר (sarar) means to be stubborn or rebellious, and is a semi-pseudonym of the verb מרד (marad), in the sense that the latter denotes mostly the act of rebellion while our verb סרר (sarar) mostly conveys the attitude.

Our verb occurs about a dozen times, mostly describing Israel's rebellious attitude towards YHWH (Psalm 78:8, Isaiah 30:1, 65:2, Jeremiah 5:23, Hosea 4:16). Mosaic Law prescribed that a rebellious son had to be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21:18) and Solomon told of a rebellious woman who went out to seduce a young man (Proverbs 7:11).

This verb's derivatives are:

The adjective סר (sar), meaning stubborn or rebellious (1 Kings 20:43, 21:4-5 and Jeremiah 6:28 only).
The feminine noun סרה (sara), meaning rebellion. This noun is generally grouped under the root סור (sur), see below, but in most instances of its half-a-dozen occurrences a relation with our verb סרר (sarar) seems more plausible: Deuteronomy 13:5, Isaiah 1:5 and 31:6, Jeremiah 28:16 and 29:32.

סור

The verb סור (sur) means to turn aside. It's used almost 200 times, with the following nuances:

To turn away from the route or course one was travelling (Genesis 19:2, 1 Samuel 6:12, Ruth 4:1).
To go away or depart from view or previous position (frogs from Egypt: Exodus 8:8; the Shekinah from the tabernacle: Numbers 12:10; the sword from the house of David: 2 Samuel 12:10).
To be removed (of lifeless things: staves from the Ark: Exodus 25:15; pagan high places from Israel: 1 Kings 15:14; Assyria's yoke from YHWH's mountains: Isaiah 14:25).
To come to an end, that is: to be removed from relevance (Amos 6:7, Isaiah 11:13).

Note that on rare occasions the verb סור (sur) may be spelled as שור — or rather: it's assumed that this spelling indeed refers to our verb סור; see for instance Hosea 9:12 — which makes it seem akin to the root-group שור (shur).

This verb's sole derivative is the feminine noun סרה (sara), meaning a turning aside. This exact same word mostly means rebellion (taken from the verb סרר, sarar), but on at least one occasion it may denote a formal legal infraction (Deuteronomy 19:16).

שרד סרד סדר

Lexicons lists two separate roots שרד (s-r-d), but here at Abarim Publications we suspect that these two roots are not all that distinct and probably formed or at least informed each other, and even relate closely to the previous:

שרד I

Root שרד (sarad) describes a taking flight in the sense of a dashing off or about in senseless fear. It appears in other Semitic languages in the sense of to be terrified or run away. In the Bible this verb appears in Joshua 10:20 only, in the compound שרידים שרדו (seridim saredu), meaning "escapees [who] escaped".

From this verb derives the much more common masculine noun שריד (sarid), meaning survivor or escapee. This word appears more than two dozen times in the Bible, mostly in negating contexts, that tell of there being no survivors left: Numbers 21:35, Joshua 10:28-40, Isaiah 1:9, Obadiah 1:18, and so on. This emphatically implies that our noun שריד (sarid) does not so much describe someone who has evaded an earlier threat to one's life and is now breathing peacefully and liberally in a place of safety, but rather someone who is still in the thick of it, panting frantically whilst trying to stay ahead of whatever is chasing him.

The opposite of a person described by our noun is not specifically a dead person but rather a person who is no longer running, someone who has attained some stationary or secure position (indeed either a grave, or perhaps a prison or some place of comfort and repose). This would explain the following as closely akin rather than wholly separate, as is commonly proposed:

שרד II סרד

The second root שרד (sarad) has to do with braiding or plaiting. An associated verb is not extant but the masculine noun שרד (serad) describes some sort of braided or coarse woven textile. It occurs in Exodus 31:10, 35:19, 39:1 and 39:41 only, consistently in the description of the specialized garments in which the high priest would perform his ministry in the tabernacle.

In post-Biblical Aramaic this same root is spelled with a ס (samekh) instead of an שׂ (sin) and produces the masculine nouns סרד (sarad), meaning net-maker, and סרדא (serada), meaning network, web or grate, and the feminine noun סרדותא (sarduta), which describes a hunter's net. This obviously links our second root שרד (sarad) to the first one in that a net — a literal bird or fishing net or a figurative network of soldiers — would be the instrument with which one pursues the last of the fleeing survivors, the still-escapees.

But, rather remarkably, this second root appears to have settled upon the form of the first by forces of association (whether applied by accident or playfulness or poetic profundity), and by means of transposition, which in Hebrew is not an uncommon process of verbal formation. It involves the swapping of two of the three letters of a root. In this case, the true origin of our second root שרד (sarad) is in the root סדר (sadar):

סדר

The root סדר (sadar) exists in Hebrew as well as Aramaic and describes any ordered arrangement of rows of lines. It's also the origin of the familiar word סדור (siddur), the modern Hebrew name of the book of daily prayers. Again no verb remains but in Hebrew occur the following derived nouns:

The masculine noun סדר (seder), which describes a general order or organization. It appears only in plural and in the negative, in Job 10:22, where Job complains that in the realm of death there are no orders or arrangements or organizations.
The feminine noun שדרה (sedera), which is spelled with a שׂ (sin) rather than a ס (samekh), and which describes any sort of lineal order of elements such as beams or pillars or soldiers standing guard. In the latter sense, it occurs in 2 Kings 11:8, 11:15 and 2 Chronicles 23:14. Lined up beams are mentioned in 1 Kings 6:9. Lined up pillars are described by the following word:
The masculine noun מסדרון (misderon), which essentially means "place of שדרה (sedera)". It describes a colonnade or pillar-supported porch, and occurs in Judges 3:23 only (and note the nod to the later Stoics and scenes like John 10:23).