יָצַר
to form
also: fashion, frame fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
- 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.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘of human activity’
- Hophal
- The passive counterpart of the Hiphil (“he was caused to…”).
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Pual
- The passive counterpart of the Piel.
Form
- 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).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
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).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
1 distinct verse where H3335 appears in the Niphal stem, across 1 book. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Isaiah 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.
“to form” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb יצר (yâtsar). The verb spans 4 stems, from Qal to Niphal. With 56 verses in 12 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Isaiah, which alone accounts for 43% of its uses. Scripture first uses it in Genesis 2:7. See the sense tree, 56-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3335 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 →
- 56
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 56 distinct verses.
- 12 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 12 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #611
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 611 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 56 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 56 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 42 verses · 75%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 10 verses · 18%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 4 verses · 7%
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: Formed 6×, Potter 6×, Potter's 5×
- American Standard Version: Potter 10×, Formed 9×, Maker 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Potter 8×, Formed 7×, Potter’s 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Potter 12×, Fashioner 7×, Formed 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3335 across 62 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 27 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 H3335 across 62 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 26 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 H3335 across 62 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 31 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 H3335 across 65 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 34 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
11 senses and sub-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. This entry also uses Pual (the passive of Piel) and Hophal (the passive of Hiphil).
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 11 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
- Pf. י׳ Is 44:10; יָצָ֑ר Gn 2:8; sf. יְצָרָהּ Is 45:18; 2 m. יָצַרְתָּ ψ 104:26 + 8 times Pf.; Impf. 3 m. וַיִּ֫יצֶר Gn 2:7; וַיִּצֶ֫ר v 19; sf. יִצְּרֵהוּ Is 44:12; 1 s. sf. אֶצָּו֯רְךָ Je 1:5; Pt. יוֹצֵר Is 41:25 + 20 times; יֹצֵר 45:18 + 6 times; sf. יֹצְרִי 49:5 + 11 times sf.; pl. יוֹצְרִים 30:14 1 Ch 4:23; cstr. יֹצְרֵי Is 44:9;— e.g. Isaiah 44:10
- 1. of human activity:
- a. of a potter who forms out of clay a vessel Is 29:16; 41:25 Je 18:4(×2), 6(×2) 1 Ch 4:23 La 4:2 Zc 11:13(×2) (these last two according to Thes SS et al. error for אוֹצָר); כְּלִי (ה)י׳ potter’s vessel 2 S 17:28 ψ 2:9 Je 19:11; חֹמֶר הי׳ potter’s clay Is 29:16; נֵבֶל י׳ 30:14; בַּקְבֻּק י׳ Je 19:1; בית הי׳ 18:2, 3. e.g. Isaiah 29:16
- b. of a carver of wood, graven images Is 44:9, 10, 12 Hb 2:18(×2). e.g. Isaiah 44:9
- c. frame, devise in the mind י׳ עָמָל ψ 94:20. e.g. Psalms 94:20
- 2. of divine activity:
- a. (as a potter) forming Adam out of עפר from אדמה Gn 2:7, 8 (J), beasts and birds, also from אדמה v 19 (J); Israel as a people Is 27:11; 43:1, 21; 44:21; 45:9(×2), 11; 64:7, even from the womb 44:2, 24; the servant of Yahweh from the womb 49:5; of the formation of the individual man 43:7; Jeremiah in the womb Je 1:5; the eye of man ψ 94:9; the locust Am 7:1; Leviathan ψ 104:26; the dry land 95:5; the earth Is 45:18(×2); the mountains Am 4:13; הַכֹּל Je 10:16 = 51:19. Fig. perhaps lost sight of in some of the above, and quite certainly in the forming of light Is 45:7, of summer and winter ψ 74:17, the רוּחַ of man Zc 12:1, and the לב of men ψ 33:15. e.g. Genesis 2:7
- b. fig. for frame, pre-ordain, plan (in divine purpose), of a situation מֵרָחוֹק Is 22:11; of an occurrence מִימֵי קֶדֶם 37:26 = 2 K 19:25; יָצַרְתִּי אַף אֶעֱשֶׂנָּה I have planned, I will also do it 46:11; י׳ רעה על Je 18:11; י׳ לַהֲכִינָהּ devised it to establish it 33:2. e.g. Isaiah 22:11
Niphal
- Pf. לְפָנַי לֹא־נוֹצַר אֵל Is 43:10 before me a god was not formed (created). e.g. Isaiah 43:10
Pual
- Pf. יָמִים יֻצָּ֑רוּ days (that) were pre-ordained (in the divine purpose) ψ 139:16 (cf. Qal, 2 b). e.g. Psalms 139:16
Hophal
- Impf. כָּל־כְּלִי יוּצַר עָלַיִךְ לֹא יִצְלָ֑ח Is 54:17 any weapon that is formed against thee will not prosper. e.g. Isaiah 54:17
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
vb. form, fashion (NH in pt. יוֹצֵר potter, creator, and deriv.; Ph. יצר potter; 𝔗 יצר; Syriac ܝܰܨܪܳܐ = יֵצֶר, etc.; Arabic وِصْرٌ covenant, contract; Assyrian êṣêru, as Heb., DlHWB 309)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from יצר (yâtsar) (H3334) — to bind.
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.
יָצַר
- to turn, shape, form. Keth. 8ᵃ (marriage benediction) אשר י׳ את וכ׳ who hast formed man in thine image. Ber. 58ᵇ (prayer in a burial place) אשר י׳ אתכם וכ׳ who created you in justice &c.; a. fr.—Part. יוֹצֵר (as noun, v. יוֹצֵר). Ib. 11ᵇ (in the morning prayer) י׳ אור בורא וכ׳ who didst form light and create darkness.—יוֹצֵר אוֹר or יוֹצֵר name of one of the benedictions preceding the reading of the morning Sh’ma. Ib.; ib. 12ᵃ; a. fr.
- to be formed, created; to be fully developed. Gen. R. s. 9 קודם עד שלא נוֹצְרָה מחשבה וכ׳ ere yet a thought is formed in the heart of man &c. Ib. קודם … נ׳ יצור, v. יְצִיר. Ab. II, 8 לכך נוֹצָרְתָּ for that purpose (of studying) thou hast been created. Ib. IV, 22. Gen. R. s. 14, beg.; Y. Yeb. IV, 5ᵈ top נ׳ לשבעה if the embryo was fully developed at seven months, contrad. to נולד, v. יָלַד. Yoma 85ᵃ; Sot. 45ᵇ מהיכן הוולד נ׳ from where does the formation of the embryo start?; a. fr.—V. צוּר.
יְצַר
- Targ. Am. IV, 13 דִּיצַר (some ed. דְּצָר), v. צוּר
- to be created, formed. Yoma 85ᵃ; Sot. 45ᵇ ממציעתיה מִיתְּצַר the formation of the embryo starts from the central portion of the body.
יֵצֶר
- preced.) [shape, formation, whence] (v. Gen. VI, 5) = י׳ מחשבות the formation of thoughts, bent of mind, inclination, desire.—י׳ הטוב or י׳ טוב (abbr. יה"ט or י"ט) the good nature of man, the inclination to do good; (personified) the good genius; י׳ הרע (abbrev. יצה"ר), also only י׳ the evil inclination, worldly desires; (personified) the tempter. Ber. 61ᵃ מיִצְרִי, v. יוֹצֵר. Gen. R. s. 9; Koh. R. to III, 11 אילולי יצה"ר לא בנה וכ׳ but for the worldly desires of man, none would build a house &c. Ab. II, 11 עין הרע ויצה"ר וכ׳ greed, sensual passion and hatred &c. Snh. 103ᵃ; Yalk. Ps. 842 שלא ישלוט בך יצה"ר that temptation may have no power over thee. Succ. 52ᵃ … לעתיד מביאו ליצה"ר וכ׳ in the days to come the Lord shall bring the Tempter and slaughter him &c. Gen. R. s. 22 מפנק את יִצְרוֹ who indulges the senses. Ib. אם בא יִצְרְךָ להשחיקך when thy inclination (Tempter) comes to lead thee to amusement. Cant. R. to VII, 8 י׳ ע"ז the passion for idolatry, י׳ זנות the passion of lust. Ab. IV, 1 הכובש את יצרו who conquers his inclination; a. v. fr. [Yoma 69ᵇ כובש את יצרו, read with Ms. M. כעסו.]—Pl. יְצָרִים. Ber. 61ᵃ (ref. to וייצר, Gen. II, 7, v. יְצִירָה) שני י׳ וכ׳ two natures, the good and the evil. Cant. R. l. c. שני י׳ ברא וכ׳ two passions did God create in this world, v. supra. Snh. 105ᵃ יסרו יצריכם chasten your passions; Yalk. Is. 302.—[יְצָרִים moulds, v. יְצִירִין.] e.g. Genesis 6:5
יֵצֶר ²
- Targ. Gen. VI, 5. Targ. Ps. XIII, 5; a. fr.—Sabb. 156ᵇ אלמיה יִצְרֵיה, v. אֲלַם. Ḥag. 16ᵃ דמצי כייף ליה ליצריה when he can conquer his passion. Kidd. 81ᵇ; Keth. 51ᵇ יצר אלבשה, v. לְבַשׁ. Snh. 64ᵃ היינו י׳ דע"ז this (lion of fire) is the passion for (tempter to) idolatry. Ib. ניבעי רחמי אַיִּ׳ דעבירה let us pray against the sensual desire (the tempter to sexual indulgence); 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 53 distinct written forms H3335 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 H3335, 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 53 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 56 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 2:7
- Exodus 32:4
- 2 Samuel 17:28
- 2 Kings 19:25
- 1 Chronicles 4:23
- Psalms 2:9
- Isaiah 22:11
- Jeremiah 1:5
- Lamentations 4:2
- Amos 4:13
- Habakkuk 2:18
- Zechariah 11:13
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.
