ברק
lightning
‘lightning’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 9 times (43%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 8 times (38%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 3 times (14%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 1 time (5%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 21 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H1300 appears — 21 distinct verses across 11 books. 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.
Exodus 1 verse
Deuteronomy 1 verse
2 Samuel 1 verse
Job 2 verses
Psalms 5 verses
- Psalms 18:14 וּ/בְרָקִ֥ים conj + n c mp He sent out his arrows, and scattered them; Yes, great lightning bolts, and routed them.
- Psalms 77:18 בְרָקִ֣ים n c mp The voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind. The lightnings lit up the world. The earth trembled and shook.
- Psalms 97:4 בְרָקָ֣י/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms His lightning lights up the world. The earth sees, and trembles.
- Psalms 135:7 בְּרָקִ֣ים n c mp Who causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth; Who makes lightnings with the rain; Who brings forth the wind out of his treasuries;
- Psalms 144:6 בָּ֭רָק n c ms Throw out lightning, and scatter them. Send out your arrows, and rout them.
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 10:13 בְּרָקִ֤ים n c mp when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries.
- Jeremiah 51:16 בְּרָקִ֤ים n c mp when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries.
Ezekiel 4 verses
- Ezekiel 1:13 בָרָֽק n c ms As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches: [the fire] went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.
- Ezekiel 21:10 בָּ֖רָק n c ms it is sharpened that it may make a slaughter; it is furbished that it may be as lightning: shall we then make mirth? the rod of my son, it condemns every tree.
- Ezekiel 21:15 לְ/בָרָ֖ק prep + n c ms I have set the threatening sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multiplied: ah! it is made as lightning, it is pointed for slaughter.
- Ezekiel 21:28 בָּרָֽק n c ms You, son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and say you, A sword, a sword is drawn, for the slaughter it is furbished, to cause it to devour, that it may be as lightning;
Daniel 1 verse
Nahum 2 verses
- Nahum 2:4 כַּ/בְּרָקִ֖ים prep det + n c mp The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the broad ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings.
- Nahum 3:3 וּ/בְרַ֣ק conj + n c ms cs the horseman mounting, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies,
Habakkuk 1 verse
Zechariah 1 verse
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.
ברק — transliterated bârâq — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “lightning.” Debuting at Exodus 19:16, it then recurs through the corpus. Spanning 21 verses in 11 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. It is not a single-sense word — see its full sense range. From the same root come ברק, ברקן and ברקת. 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 H1300 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 →
- 21
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 21 distinct verses.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,462
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,462 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 21 occurrences in the concordance →
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 21 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 verses · 52%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 38%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 10%
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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Lightnings 8×, Lightning 5×, Glittering 4×
- American Standard Version†: Lightnings 6×, Lightning 5×, Glittering 3×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Lightning 10×, Flash like lightning 3×, Like lightning 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Lightning 9×, Like lightning 3×, Lightning bolts 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1300 across 21† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1300 across 22† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H1300 across 21† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1300 across 22† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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
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 2 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.
ברק I
- 1. lit. mostly pl. = lightnings, lightning-flashes Ex 19:16 ψ 18:15 (in theoph., on 2 S 22:15 v. infr.) 77:19; 97:4; 135:7 Jb 38:35 Je 10:13; 51:16; so in sim. of swift brightness Na 2:5, sg. only ψ 144:6 2 S 22:15 (where however read בְּרָקִים בָּרַק cf. בָּרַק—so 𝔊L Klo Che, cf. his crit. n. ψ 18:15), Ez 1:13 (in vision), and in sim. of brightness Dn 10:6; swift destruction Zc 9:14. e.g. Exodus 19:16
- 2. fig. (always sing.) of flashing arrow-head Jb 20:25, cf. ב׳ חרב Dt 32:41, ב׳ חנית Na 3:3 Hb 3:11; cf. glitter of weapon Ez 21:15, 20, 33. e.g. Job 20:25
ברק II m. (lightning-flash, cf. Pun. Barcas, surname of Hamilear, cf. NeposHamilcar 1, 1
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
I. n.m. Ez 1:13 lightning (chiefly in poetry) (Arabic بَرْقٌ, Assyrian birḳu COTGloss, ZimBP 76, 82 Aramaic בְּרַק, ܒܰܪܩܳܐ )—abs. ב׳ Jb 20:25 + 7 times + 2 S 22:15 (cf. infr.); cstr. בְּרַק Dt 32:41 + 2 times; pl. בְּרָקִים Ex 19:16 + 7 times, בְּרָקָיו ψ 97:4;—lightning,
II. n.pr.m. (lightning-flash, cf. Pun. Barcas, surname of Hamilear, cf. NeposHamilcar 1, 1; Sab. ברקם DHMZMG, 1875, 592; Palm. ברק VogPalm. 76) son of Abinoam, & leader of Israel Ju 4:6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14(×2), 15, 16, 22; 5:1, 12, 15.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from ברק (bâraq) (H1299) — to flash.
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.
בָּרַק
- , v. ברר) to be bright, shine, flash. B. Bath. 97ᵇ (יין) בּוֹרֵק white effervescent wine (not fully fermented; Var. בּוֹדֵק searching in the bowels, i.e. causing diarrhœa, v. בָּדַק); Tosef. Men. IX, 9 הַבּוֹרֵיק (sub. יין) the effervescent (wine), v. בָּארַג; Yoma 28ᵇ top, v. next w. Tosef. Ter. VII, 16 [read:] ב׳ והניחו if it was effervescent when he left it.
- 1. (cmp. (cmp. ברץ ברח) to cut through from end to end. Y. Kil. V, 29ᵈ bot. עד שיהא מַבְרִיק כדי וכ׳ until it (the ditch in the vineyard) passes through from end to end, wide enough for man and his tilling cattle.
- 2. (denom. of בָּרָק) to be affected by lightning, get blind (or get vermin). B. Mets. VI, 3, expl. ib. 78ᵃ אבזקת a. נהוריתא.
בְּרַק I
- , to shine, rise. Y. Yoma III, beg. 40ᵇ; Y. R. Hash. II, beg. 57ᵈ what is בורקי (Mish. Yoma III, 1)? It means בָּרֶקֶת, the rising light, as people say in Babylonia (בְּרַק ברוקא) בְּרוּק ברוקה the sparkling (star) shines, meaning אנהר מנהורא the light-giver (morning star) gives light. [Bab. Yoma 28ᵇ (hebr.) בָּרַק ברקאי.] Ber. 59ᵃ (expl. רעמים) ברקא תקיפא דבריק בעננא וכ׳ an intense lightning which flashes through the cloud and breaks pieces of hailstone, (Var. v. Rabb. D. S. a. l.).
- to send forth lightning (fulminare). Targ. Ps. CXLIV, 6.—Targ. II Esth. III, 8 מבריקין עיניהון their eyes sparkling (in defiance). [Ḥull. 112ᵃ דאבריק some ed., read דאבריה, v. בְּרָא.]
בָּרָק
- preced.) lightning. Lev. R. s. 31.—Pl. בְּרָקִים. Ber. IX, 2; a. fr.
בְּרַק II
- (b. h.) pr. n. pl. B’ne B’rak (Josh. XIX, 45, modern Ibn Ibrak) near Japho, seat of R. Akiba’s college. Snh. 32ᵇ. Lev. R. s. 21. Tosef. Sabb. III (IV), 3. e.g. Joshua 19:45
בְּרַק III
- 1. = h. בָּרָק. Targ. Deut. XXXII, 41 (Y. II בְּרָקָא); a. fr.—Ber. 59ᵃ ב׳ יחידאה a single flash (for vers. v. Rabb. D. S. a. l.); a. fr.—Pl. בְּרָקִין, בַּרְקִין, בַּרְקַיָּא, בַּרְקֵי. Targ. Ps. XVIII, 15; a. fr. [Y. R. Hash. II, beg. ברק ברקא, read בַּרְקַאי.] Ber. l. c. וברקיא ירוקתא some ed. (read ירוקרקי as Ms. M.). Ib. דבריק ברקי ומנהמי וכ׳ (read דברוק, v. also Rabb. D. S. a. l.) the lightnings break through and make the clouds rumble &c.
- 2. white cataract (v. בָּרַק Hif.), cmp. בַּרְקִית. Bekh. 38ᵇ וסימנך ברקא and thy sign (by which to remember which of the two affections of the eye is considered a blemish) take barka (meaning white and cataract, and like the cataract is the floating white spot in the eye a disqualifying blemish). V. next w.
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 19 distinct written forms H1300 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1300, 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.
Derives from
Derived from this word
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 21 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 21 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
- Exodus 19:16
- Deuteronomy 32:41
- 2 Samuel 22:15
- Job 20:25
- Psalms 18:14
- Jeremiah 10:13
- Ezekiel 1:13
- Daniel 10:6
- Nahum 2:4
- Habakkuk 3:11
- Zechariah 9:14
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.
