2 Samuel 22:43

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Then did I beat them small as the dust of the earth, I did crush them as the mire of the streets, and did spread them abroad.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

Full analysis ↓

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Word by word

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וְאֶשְׁחָקֵ֖ם

shâchaq

H7833

“and · to pulverize · them”

Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural

Appears 4× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 30:36

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2367

to rub away, beat fine, pulverise - (Qal) - to rub away - of incense, stones - of enemies (figuratively)

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

7: words
7: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וְאֶשְׁחָקֵ֖ם to pulverize H7833 — appearing just 4 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

כְּטִיט mud H2916

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וְאֶשְׁחָקֵ֖ם to pulverize H7833 occurs in 4 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
4 nouns

Verb forms

וְאֶשְׁחָקֵ֖ם Qal · Imperfect
אֲדִקֵּ֖ם Hiphil · Imperfect
אֶרְקָעֵֽם Qal · Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 27 words from the Hebrew and 20 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 7 Hebrew tokens and 11 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 2 Samuel 22:43 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Micah 7:10 Then my enemy will see it, And shame will cover her who said to me, Where is Yahweh your God? Then my enemy will see me and will cover her shame. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets.
Isaiah 10:6 I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
2 Kings 13:7 For he didn't leave to Jehoahaz of the people save fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing.
Zechariah 10:5 They shall be as mighty men, Treading down muddy streets in the battle; And they shall fight, because Yahweh is with them; And the riders on horses will be confounded.
Deuteronomy 32:26 I said, I would scatter them afar, I would make the memory of them to cease from among men;
Psalms 18:42 Then I beat them small as the dust before the wind. I cast them out as the mire of the streets.
Psalms 35:5 Let them be as chaff before the wind, Yahweh's angel driving them on.
Isaiah 26:15 You have increased the nation, O Yahweh, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

Daniel 2:35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them: and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
Zechariah 2:6 Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,' says Yahweh; 'for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the sky,' says Yahweh.
Malachi 4:1 "For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up," says Yahweh of Hosts, "that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
Luke 21:24 They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 2 Samuel 22:43 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְאֶשְׁחָקֵ֖ם כַּעֲפַר אָ֑רֶץ כְּטִיט חוּצ֥וֹת אֲדִקֵּ֖ם אֶרְקָעֵֽם

Then did I beat them small as the dust of the earth, I did crush them as the mire of the streets, and did spread them abroad.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Samuel 22:43 Septuagint · lemma form

καί λεαίνω αὐτός ὡς χοῦς γῆ ὡς πηλός ἔξοδος λεπτύνω αὐτός

And I ground them as the dust of the earth, I beat them small as the mire of the streets.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וְדוֹשַׁשְׁתִּינוּן כְּעַפְרָא דְאַרְעָא כְּסִין שׁוֹקִין בְּעַטֵית בְּהוֹן רְפַסְתִּינוּן:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 2 Samuel 22:43 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(43) Dust of the earth.—Psalms 18 reads, “Dust before the wind,” and in the second clause omits “did spread them abroad.” The psalm thus combines in one compact figure what is here spread out in two clauses. The change is certainly designed, and heightens the poetic effect.

Thou hast kept me.—The wording of the psalm, “Thou hast made me,” involves only a slight difference in the original, and is a mere clerical variation.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

43. as the dust of the earth] In Psa_18:42, “as the dust before the wind.” For the metaphor cp. 2Ki_13:7.

I did stamp them, &c.] In Psa_18:42, “as the mire of the streets did I empty them out:” I flung them away as worthless refuse. Again the variation is due to the confusion of similar words (אדקם–ארים).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

I will trample them. I will trample them. There are many cases like this in the book of Yechezkiel, [such as] "You will trample with your feet" [and] "You trampled with [your] foot."

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

2 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 7 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shâchaq (“to pulverize”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to pulverize” (shâchaq) shape what this verse is saying?
The word “mud” first appears here in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
Exodus 30:36 shares the word «to pulverize» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «וְאֶשְׁחָקֵ֖ם» is Qal Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 11 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 13 words in this verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.