Word study

Split

6 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: split, splits. 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 “split” 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 11 times of its 51 uses · Strong’s H1234Verb  ·  Translated: split 7, breached 4, divided 3, burst forth 2

    Genesis 22:3 So Abraham got up early the next morning, saddled his donkey, and took along two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had designated.

    Numbers 16:31 As soon as Moses had finished saying all this, the ground beneath them split open,

    Full study and all 50 verses →
  • שֶׁסַע shesaclefttranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H8157Noun  ·  Translated: split 3

    Leviticus 11:3 You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud.

    Deuteronomy 14:6 You may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided in two and that chews the cud.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • קָרַע qârateartranslated this way 2 times of its 63 uses · Strong’s H7167Verb  ·  Translated: tore 25, torn 15, tear 11, away 3

    1 Kings 13:3 That day the man of God gave a sign, saying, “The LORD has spoken this sign: ‘Surely the altar will be split apart, and the ashes upon it will be poured out.’”

    1 Kings 13:5 And the altar was split apart, and the ashes poured out, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.

    Full study and all 60 verses →
  • בָּתַר bâtharcut in twotranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H1334Verb  ·  Translated: split 1, cut in half 1

    Genesis 15:10 So Abram brought all these to Him, split each of them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. The birds, however, he did not cut in half.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • נָכָה nâkâhsmitetranslated this way 1 time of its 496 uses · Strong’s H5221Verb  ·  Translated: struck 145, strike 59, put 31, defeated 28

    Isaiah 11:15 The LORD will devote to destruction the gulf of the Sea of Egypt; with a scorching wind He will sweep His hand over the Euphrates. He will split it into seven streams for men to cross with dry sandals.

    Full study and all 460 verses →
  • פָּרַר pârarbreak, frustratetranslated this way 1 time of its 47 uses · Strong’s H6565Verb  ·  Translated: break 11, broken 7, nullifies 3, thwart 3

    Isaiah 24:19 The earth is utterly broken apart, the earth is split open, the earth is shaken violently.

    Full study and all 46 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • σχίζω schízōI rend, divide asundertranslated this way 1 time of its 11 uses · Strong’s G4977Verb  ·  Translated: torn 4, tear 2, divided 2, split 1

    Matthew 27:51 At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, and the rocks were split.

    Full study and all 9 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.