שְׁאֵרִית

“Remnant” in Hebrew is She'erit (שְׁאֵרִית), pronounced “she-eh-REET.” She'erit comes from the root שׁ-א-ר (shin-aleph-resh), meaning 'to remain, be left over, survive.' The remnant is what remains after judgment, catastrophe, or sifting — the resilient core that cannot be destroyed.

She'erit (שְׁאֵרִית) means “Remnant, remainder, survivors” in Biblical Hebrew. She'erit and its root appear over 220 times in the Hebrew Bible. It describes survivors of judgment (Genesis 45:7, Joseph preserving a remnant), Isaiah's remnant theology (Isaiah 10:21-22, 11:11, 37:32), the returned exiles (Ezra 9:8), and Paul's remnant of grace (Romans 11:5).

She'erit is pronounced “she-eh-REET.” The word comes from the Hebrew root שׁ-א-ר.

The remnant (she'erit) is the faithful core of God's people who survive judgment and carry forward His covenant purposes. When Israel fell into idolatry, God always preserved a faithful few. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zephaniah all prophesy a remnant who will return, be purified, and become the seed of restoration. God's plan never depends on majority faithfulness.

Isaiah named his son 'Shear-Jashub' (A Remnant Shall Return) as a living prophetic sign (Isaiah 7:3). Every time people saw the boy, they heard the promise: even after judgment, a remnant would return to God. The name embodied both warning (judgment is coming) and hope (God will preserve His faithful ones).

Paul explicitly applies the remnant concept to the church age in Romans 11:5: 'At the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.' Just as God preserved 7,000 who didn't bow to Baal in Elijah's day, God preserves a faithful remnant in every generation. This encourages believers in times of widespread compromise: God's purposes don't depend on numbers but on faithfulness.