Word study

Crack

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: cracked, crack. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “crack” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • בָּקַע bâqacleave, break open or throughtranslated this way 2 times of its 51 uses · Strong’s H1234Verb  ·  Translated: split 7, breached 4, divided 3, burst forth 2

    Joshua 9:4 acted deceptively and set out as envoys, carrying on their donkeys worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended.

    Joshua 9:13 These wineskins were new when we filled them, but look, they are cracked. And these clothes and sandals are worn out from our very long journey.”

    Full study and all 50 verses →
  • רָגַע râgadisturbtranslated this way 1 time of its 13 uses · Strong’s H7280Verb  ·  Translated: stirs 2, instant 2

    Job 7:5 My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.

    Full study and all 13 verses →
  • חָתַת châthathbe shattered, dismayedtranslated this way 1 time of its 52 uses · Strong’s H2865Verb  ·  Translated: dismayed 11, discouraged 10, shattered 10, terrified 7

    Jeremiah 14:4 The ground is cracked because no rain has fallen on the land. The farmers are ashamed; they cover their heads.

    Full study and all 46 verses →
  • זוּרֶה zûrehtroddentranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H2116Verb  ·  Translated: crack one open 1

    Isaiah 59:5 They hatch the eggs of vipers and weave a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die; crack one open, and a viper is hatched.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • קוֹל qôlsound, voicetranslated this way 1 time of its 425 uses · Strong’s H6963Noun  ·  Translated: voice 197, sound 63, voices 22, thunder 11

    Nahum 3:2 The crack of the whip, the rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!

    Full study and all 378 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.