בָּצַר
to fortify
‘to fortify’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
Stem
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘cut off’
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H1219 appears in the Book of Hosea — 1 distinct verse. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Hosea
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
At its core, בצר (bâtsar) means “to fortify.” The King James Version usually renders it “fenced,” while modern versions prefer “fortified” (Berean Standard Bible) — see the renderings breakdown. With 38 verses in 19 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Genesis 11:6. The verb spans 3 stems, from Qal to Niphal. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1219 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 38
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 38 distinct verses.
- 19 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 19 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #947
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 947 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 38 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Isaiah 6 verses 16%
- Deuteronomy 5 verses 13%
- Jeremiah 5 verses 13%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 38 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 22 verses · 58%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 9 verses · 24%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 7 verses · 18%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Fenced 6×, Defenced 4×, Against the fenced 2×
- American Standard Version: Fortified 9×, Against all the fortified 2×, Against the fortified 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Fortified 18×, Grape gatherers 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Fortified 18×, Gather 2×, You shall 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1219 across 37 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 21 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1219 across 37 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H1219 across 35 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1219 across 37 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 3 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
Qal
- cut off, grape-clusters; hence grape-gathering, -gatherer; fig. cut off (= take away)
Niphal
- . be withheld
Piel
- . fortify
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
[ בָּצַר ] vb. cut off, make inaccessible (esp. by fortifying), enclose
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
בָּצַר
- to cut grapes. Pes. 3ᵇ בּוֹצְרִין בטהרה one must cut grapes under the rules of levitical cleanness. Gitt. 57ᵃ בָּצְרוּ … את כרמיהן וכ׳ the gentiles held vintage in vineyards soaked with Israel’s blood; a. fr.
- 1. to be cut. Ex. R. s. 30, beg. עד שתגיע עונתן לִיבָּצֵר until their (the nations’) time has arrived to be cut (ripe for punishment).
- 2. to be cut off, diminished. Tanḥ. Noah 18 נִבְצָרִים מן וכ׳ cut off from the world (destroyed). Gen. R. s. 38 יִבָּצֵר מהם shall be denied them.
- to cut off, whence (cmp. גדר)
- 1. to surround, fortify. Part. pass. מְבוּצָּר. Y. Pes. VII, 35ᵇ bot.; Y. Shebu. VIII, beg., 38ᵇ גג מב׳ a roof surrounded with railings, v. בְּצוֹצְרָה.—Neg. I, 5 מְבוּצֶּרֶת an eruption surrounded with sound flesh; ib. X, 2 sq. מבוצר (of the hair in the flesh affected by the eruption). Deut. R. s. 1 (ref. to עיר מצור Ps. LX, 11, a. מבצר ib. CVIII, 11) עיר שמבוצרת וכ׳ the city (of Rome) which is well fortified &c. e.g. Psalms 60:11
- 2. to diminish. Ib. שמצירה ומבצרה לישראל (Mat. K. ומְבַצֶּרֶת, Yalk. Ps. 779 מבצרא ch.) the city which troubles and diminishes Israel.
- to be railed around, be set apart. Meg. 14ᵃ; Snh. 110ᵃ; Num. R. s. 18 מקום נ׳ להם וכ׳ a place was set apart for them in Gehenna; Koh. R. to VII, 2.
בָּצֵר
- (v. preced. a. next w.) to be diminished. Keth. 7ᵇ דבָצְרָה מיום אחד who has less than one day’s (celebration of marriage with benedictions at meals).
בְּצַר
- 1. (neut. v.) to be cut, lessened; to be small; to want. Ab. Zar. 9ᵃ כמה בצרן (Rashi בצירן) how much is wanting yet? Targ. Prov. XIV, 28 בציר עמא the population is diminishing.—Ḥull. 42ᵇ בצר להו חדא there is, according to him, one less (than the number stated); a. fr.
- 2. (act. v.) to diminish, lessen. Targ. Y. Deut. XIII, 1; IV, 2 (Var. תבַצְּרוּן Pa.). Targ. Job XV, 4.—Nidd. 65ᵃ למִבְצַר לה חדא to allow her one night less; a. fr.
- to cut off; to diminish, deduct. Men. 37ᵇ האי מאן דבַצְּרֵיה לגלימיה he who cuts one corner of his cloak off.—Targ. Koh. III, 5. Targ. Deut. IV, 2, a. e., v. supra.—Ab. Zar. 9ᵇ ונְבַצַּר וכ׳ we let him deduct therefrom forty eight. B. Mets. 103ᵇ בַּצְּרִי לך I let thee have it for less.—Denom. בַּצִּירָא one who uses the vowel letters sparingly. Ab. Zar. 9ᵃ; 9ᵇ and as a mnemonical sign (for remembering when to add and when to deduct) ספרא ב׳ וכ׳ the writer of Bible copies writes many words without the vowel letters (defective) which the Mishnah teacher writes plene
בֶּצֶר
- (b. h.)
- 1. = בָּצִיר crop, trnsf. means of support, (family-) trade. Ex. R. s. 40, end לעולם … מניח בִּצְרוֹ one should never give up his trade; Pesik. R. s. 6, end מחליף בְּצִירוֹ (Arakh. 16 אומנותו ואומנות אבותיו). Ex. R. l. c. (insert Job XXII, 24—25 as text) the Lord says, אני הוא בִצְרְכֶן … בִצְרָן וכ׳ I am your support, give ye never up your support (faith); but also the support of your fathers ye must not give up (labor) &c. Pesik. R. l. c. thou art our God ובְצִירֵנוּ and our support (ref. to Ps. XCV, 6). e.g. Job 22:24
- 2. pl. בְּצָרִים fort. Ex. R. l. c. (ref. to Job l. c.; cmp. Targ.) שנעשה חומותיך He will be thy fortification. [Yalk. Deut. 811, v. בִּיצּוּר.]
צֹר
- , v. צוֹר
צַר I
- to be narrow, v. צָרַר.
צַר II
- preced.)
- 1. (adj.) narrow. Par. XII, 2 צלוחית שפיה צר a flask with a narrow neck; a. e.—צַר עַיִן, pl. צָרֵי עין narrow-minded, selfish, envious. Y. Taan. III, 66ᵈ (ref. to Job XXXVI, 19) אם סדרתה תפלה לא יהו לך צ׳ ע׳ מלמעלה if thou orderest thy prayer well, thou shalt have no envious adversaries in heaven above; a. e.; v. עַיִן.—Fem. צָרָה. Esth. R. to I, 5, a. e., v. עַיִן; a. fr.—Pl. צָרוֹת. Y. Sot. IX, 24ᵃ bot. רחבות מלמעלן וצ׳ וכ׳ wide above, and narrow below; a. fr. e.g. Job 36:19
- 2. anguish, trouble. Erub. 65ᵃ בַּצַּר אל יורה, v. יָרָה.
- 3. oppressor, adversary. Gen. R. s. 61, end, v. צוֹר.—[Yalk. Gen. 62 שונא וצר, v. עָר.]—Pl. צָרִים. Ex. R. s. 21 (ref. to Job l. c.) ערוך שועך … צ׳ מלמעלן order thy prayer before thy Maker, that thou have no adversaries (accusers) in heaven above; Snh. 44ᵇ כל המאמץ … אין לו צ׳ וכ׳ he who strengthens himself (makes a strong effort) for prayer, has no adversaries &c. Ib. ואל יהיו צ׳ וכ׳ and that he may have no adversaries &c. Ex. R. s. 27 צָרֵיהֶם של ישראל Israel’s allied adversaries; a. fr.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 32 distinct written forms H1219 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| הַ/בְּצֻר֖וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 19:5 | 4 |
| בְּצֻרֽוֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Kings 19:25 | 2 |
| בֹּֽצְרִים֙ | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Jeremiah 49:9 | 2 |
| הַ/בְּצֻר֔וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 32:1 | 2 |
| בְצוּרָ֖ה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 25:2 | 1 |
| בְצוּרָֽה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 2:15 | 1 |
| בְּצֻר֑וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Hosea 8:14 | 1 |
| בְּצֻר֔וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Joshua 14:12 | 1 |
| בְּצֻר֖וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Samuel 20:6 | 1 |
| בְּצֻר֛וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Deuteronomy 3:5 | 1 |
| בְּצֻר֤וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Numbers 13:28 | 1 |
| בְּצֻרוֹת֮ | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Nehemiah 9:25 | 1 |
| בְּצוּר֥וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Ezekiel 36:35 | 1 |
| בְּצוּרָ֔ה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 15:20 | 1 |
| בְּצוּרָֽה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 21:20 | 1 |
| בְּצוּרָה֙ | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 27:10 | 1 |
| הַ/בְּצֻר֑וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 17:2 | 1 |
| הַ/בָּצִֽיר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Zechariah 11:2 | 1 |
| וְ/הַ/בְּצֻר֔וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Deuteronomy 28:52 | 1 |
| וַֽ/יִּבְצְר֤וּ | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Judges 9:27 | 1 |
| וּ/בְצֻר֖וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Jeremiah 33:3 | 1 |
| וּ/בְצֻרֹ֖ת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Deuteronomy 9:1 | 1 |
| וּ/בְצוּרֹ֖ת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Deuteronomy 1:28 | 1 |
| יִ֭בְצֹר | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 76:12 | 1 |
| יִבָּצֵ֖ר | Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Job 42:2 | 1 |
| יִבָּצֵ֣ר | Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Genesis 11:6 | 1 |
| כְּ/בוֹצֵ֖ר | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 6:9 | 1 |
| לְ/בַצֵּ֖ר | Verb, Piel, Infinitive Construct | Isaiah 22:10 | 1 |
| תְבַצֵּ֖ר | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Jeremiah 51:53 | 1 |
| תִבְצְר֖וּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural | Leviticus 25:11 | 1 |
| תִבְצֹ֑ר | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Leviticus 25:5 | 1 |
| תִבְצֹר֙ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Deuteronomy 24:21 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1219, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derived from this word
- בצור bâtsôwr H1208 vintage
- בציר bâtsîyr H1210 vintage
- בצר betser H1220 gold
- בצרה botsrâh H1223 sheepfold
- בצרון bitstsârôwn H1225 stronghold
- בצרת batstsôreth H1226 drought
- מבצר mibtsâr H4013 fortress
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 8 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 36 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 38 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Genesis 11:6
- Leviticus 25:5
- Numbers 13:28
- Deuteronomy 1:28
- Joshua 14:12
- Judges 9:27
- 2 Samuel 20:6
- 2 Kings 18:13
- 2 Chronicles 17:2
- Job 42:2
- Psalms 76:12
- Isaiah 2:15
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
