חׇרְבָּה
ruin
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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H2723 appears in the Book of Ezekiel — 14 distinct verses. 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.
Ezekiel
- Ezekiel 5:14 לְ/חָרְבָּ֣ה prep + n c fs Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are round about you, in the sight of all that pass by.
- Ezekiel 13:4 בָּ/חֳרָב֑וֹת prep + n c fp Israel, your prophets have been like foxes in the waste places.
- Ezekiel 25:13 חָרְבָּה֙ n c fs therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, I will stretch out my hand on Edom, and will cut off man and animal from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; even to Dedan shall they fall by the sword.
- Ezekiel 26:20 כָּ/חֳרָב֤וֹת prep + n c fp then will I bring you down with those who descend into the pit, to the people of old time, and will make you to dwell in the lower parts of the earth, in the places that are desolate of old, with those who go down to the pit, that you be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living:
- Ezekiel 29:9 וְ/חָרְבָּ֔ה conj + n c fs The land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste; and they shall know that I am Yahweh. Because he has said, The river is mine, and I have made it;
- Ezekiel 29:10 לְ/חָרְבוֹת֙ prep + n c fp cs therefore, behold, I am against you, and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from the tower of Seveneh even to the border of Ethiopia.
- Ezekiel 33:24 הֶ/חֳרָב֨וֹת ptcl def.art + n c fp Son of man, they who inhabit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance.
- Ezekiel 33:27 בֶּֽ/חֳרָבוֹת֙ prep det + n c fp Thus shall you tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword; and him who is in the open field will I give to the animals to be devoured; and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves shall die of the pestilence.
- Ezekiel 35:4 חָרְבָּ֣ה n c fs I will lay your cities waste, and you shall be desolate; and you shall know that I am Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 36:4 וְ/לֶ/חֳרָב֤וֹת conj + prep det + n c fp therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: Thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which are become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are round about;
- Ezekiel 36:10 וְ/הֶ/חֳרָב֖וֹת conj + ptcl def.art + n c fp and I will multiply men on you, all the house of Israel, even all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited, and the waste places shall be built;
- Ezekiel 36:33 הֶ/חֳרָבֽוֹת ptcl def.art + n c fp Thus says the Lord Yahweh: In the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be built.
- Ezekiel 38:8 לְ/חָרְבָּ֖ה prep + n c fs After many days you shall be visited: in the latter years you shall come into the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, on the mountains of Israel, which have been a continual waste; but it is brought forth out of the peoples, and they shall dwell securely, all of them.
- Ezekiel 38:12 חֳרָב֣וֹת n c fp to take the spoil and to take the prey; to turn your hand against the waste places that are [now] inhabited, and against the people who are gathered out of the nations, who have gotten cattle and goods, who dwell in the middle of the earth.
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.
The Hebrew noun חרבה centers on the idea of “ruin.” Where the King James Version says “waste,” newer translations reach for “ruins” (Berean Standard Bible); the renderings breakdown has the detail. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 42 verses — moderately common. Ezekiel dominates its distribution — 14 of 42 verses. First canonically at Leviticus 26:31, it enters the text early. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2723 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 →
- 42
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 42 distinct verses.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #864
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 864 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 42 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 42 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 34 verses · 81%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 14%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 5%
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: Waste 7×, Wastes 6×, Desolate places 3×
- American Standard Version: Waste 8×, Waste places 5×, Wastes 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Ruins 17×, Ruin 4×, Desolate 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Ruins 9×, Ruin 6×, Desolations 5×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2723 across 42 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 19 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 H2723 across 42 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 22 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 H2723 across 42 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 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 H2723 across 42 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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.
- 1. waste, ruin, of cities of Israel Lv 26:31, 33 (H); Judah Is 44:26; 49:19 (‖ שֹׁמְמֹת), 58:12 (בנה), Je 25:18; 27:17; 44:2, 6 Ez 5:14; ruins of Jerusalem Is 52:9 Dn 9:2; also Ez 35:4; cf. Mal 1:4 (c. בנה), Ez 36:10 (c. בנה) v 33 (id.); Egypt Ez 29:9, 10 (in both ‖ שְׁמָמָה; חרבות חֹרֶב in v 10); ruin of temple Ezr 9:9; = ruined dwellings ψ 109:10; cf. 2 Ch 34:6, where read perhaps בְּחָרְבֹתֵיהֶם for בּחר בתיהם (v. חֶרֶב sub III. חרב); Je 22:5; in gen. ruins (si vera l., v. Di; obj. of בנה) Jb 3:14; כוס ח׳ ψ 102:7 an owl of a ruin. e.g. Leviticus 26:31
- 2. of land: waste place amid ruins Is 5:17, cf. 51:3 (‖ מִדְבָּר, עֲרָבָה); land a desolation Je 7:34; 44:22 Ez 25:13 (Edom) Je 25:11 Is 64:10 and Ez 33:24, 27 (of Judah), cf. Ez 13:4, כְּשֻׁעָלִים בח׳ sim. of the prophets; הח׳ הַשֹּׁמֵמוֹת Ez 36:4 (of Israel); of desolation of enemies of Isr. ψ 9:7 (ח׳ לָנֶ֫צַח); ח׳ עולם = old ruins Is 61:4 (c. בנה); elsewhere perpetual ruin, desolation Je 25:9; 49:13 (cities of Bosra); ה׳ מעולם Ez 26:20 (sim. of Tyre) pl. חֲרָבוֹת deserts (?) Is 48:21. e.g. Isaiah 5:17
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
n.f. waste, desolation, ruin;—abs. ח׳ Lv 26:31 + 15 times + Ez 38:8 (del. 𝔖 Co) + Ez 38:12 חרבה 𝔊 Co for חרבות; pl. חֳרָבוֹת ψ 9:7 + 11 times (Ez 38:12, cf. supr.); cstr. חָרְבוֹת Is 5:17 + 7 times; sf. חָרְבֹתַיִךְ Is 49:19; חָרְבֹתָיו Ezr 9:9; חָרְבֹתֶיהָ Is 51:3; חָרְבוֹתֶיהָ Is 44:26; חָרְבוֹתֵיהֶם ψ 109:10 + 2 Ch 34:6 (cf. חֶרֶב and infr.); (chiefly mid. and late Heb. Is 2 8 times; Je 10 times Ez 14 times—incl. 38:8, q. del. Co);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from חרב (chôreb) (H2721) — dryness.
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.
חַרְבָּה
- (v. חֶרֶב) knife. Shebi. VIII, 6 קוצץ אותם בח׳ (Ar. ed. Koh. בחורבה, R. S. בחרבא) you may cut them with a knife, opp. to מוקצה the tool especially intended for cutting figs.
חָרְבָּה
- ruin, v. חוֹרְבָּה.
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 34 distinct written forms H2723 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.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 40 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 42 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
- Leviticus 26:31
- Ezra 9:9
- Job 3:14
- Psalms 9:6
- Isaiah 5:17
- Jeremiah 7:34
- Ezekiel 5:14
- Daniel 9:2
- Malachi 1:4
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.
