Word study

Devastation

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “devastation”. 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 “devastation” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שַׁמָּה shammâhwaste, appalmenttranslated this way 2 times of its 39 uses · Strong’s H8047Noun  ·  Translated: desolation 12, horror 7, object of horror 6, laid waste 3

    Psalm 46:8 Come, see the works of the LORD, who brings devastation upon the earth.

    Ezekiel 23:33 You will be filled with drunkenness and grief, with a cup of devastation and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria.

    Full study and all 39 verses →
  • שׁוֹא shôravage (?)translated this way 2 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s H7722Noun  ·  Translated: ruin 2, devastation 2

    Isaiah 10:3 What will you do on the day of reckoning when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

    Isaiah 47:11 But disaster will come upon you; you will not know how to charm it away. A calamity will befall you that you will be unable to ward off. Devastation will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly.

    Full study and all 11 verses →
  • שֹׁד shôdviolence, havoc, devastation, ruintranslated this way 2 times of its 25 uses · Strong’s H7701Noun  ·  Translated: destruction 13, violence 3, ruin 2, devastation 2

    Isaiah 51:19 These pairs have befallen you: devastation and destruction, famine and sword. Who will grieve for you? Who can comfort you?

    Jeremiah 48:3 A voice cries out from Horonaim: ‘Devastation and great destruction!’

    Full study and all 24 verses →
  • שָׁחַת shâchathgo to ruin (?)translated this way 1 time of its 145 uses · Strong’s H7843Verb  ·  Translated: destroy 58, destroyed 13, corrupt 7, corrupted 5

    2 Samuel 14:11 “Please,” she replied, “may the king invoke the LORD your God to prevent the avenger of blood from increasing the devastation, so that my son may not be destroyed!” “As surely as the LORD lives,” he vowed, “not a hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.”

    Full study and all 135 verses →
  • שֵׁאת shêthdintranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H7612Noun  ·  Translated: devastation 1

    Lamentations 3:47 Panic and pitfall have come upon us — devastation and destruction.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
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.