נָתַשׁ
to uproot
‘to uproot’ is one of 4 main senses 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.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Hophal
- The passive counterpart of the Hiphil (“he was caused to…”).
Form
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
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
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms 13 distinct
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 4 times (19%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 3 times (14%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 3 times (14%)
- Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (10%)
- Verb, Hophal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (5%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (5%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (5%)
- Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (5%)
+5 more forms (5 occurrences)
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 H5428 appears — 19 distinct verses across 9 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.
Deuteronomy 1 verse
1 Kings 1 verse
2 Chronicles 1 verse
Psalms 1 verse
Jeremiah 11 verses
- Jeremiah 1:10 לִ/נְת֥וֹשׁ prep + Qal inf.cs behold, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.
- Jeremiah 12:14 נֹֽתְשָׁ/ם֙ אֶתּ֥וֹשׁ Qal ptcp.act ms cs + sfx pers 3mp Qal impf 1cs Thus says Yahweh against all my evil neighbors, who touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit: behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them.
- Jeremiah 12:15 נָתְשִׁ֣/י Qal inf.cs + sfx pers 1cs It shall happen, after that I have plucked them up, I will return and have compassion on them; and I will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.
- Jeremiah 12:17 וְ/נָ֨תַשְׁתִּ֜י נָת֥וֹשׁ conj + Qal wpf 1cs Qal inf.abs But if they will not hear, then will I pluck up that nation, plucking up and destroying it, says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 18:7 לִ/נְת֥וֹשׁ prep + Qal inf.cs At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it;
- Jeremiah 18:14 יִנָּתְשׁ֗וּ Niphal impf 3mp Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? [or] shall the cold waters that flow down from afar be dried up?
- Jeremiah 24:6 אֶתּֽוֹשׁ Qal impf 1cs For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
- Jeremiah 31:28 לִ/נְת֧וֹשׁ prep + Qal inf.cs It shall happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 31:40 יִנָּתֵ֧שׁ Niphal impf 3ms The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy to Yahweh; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.
- Jeremiah 42:10 אֶתּ֑וֹשׁ Qal impf 1cs If you will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I repent me of the evil that I have done to you.
- Jeremiah 45:4 נֹתֵ֑שׁ Qal ptcp.act ms Thus shall you tell him, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up; and this in the whole land.
Ezekiel 1 verse
Daniel 1 verse
Amos 1 verse
Micah 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 uproot” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb נתש (nâthash). More than half of its appearances fall in Jeremiah. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 19 verses — uncommon. Its earliest occurrence is Deuteronomy 29:28. The verb spans 3 stems, from Qal to Niphal. See the sense tree, 19-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H5428 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 →
- 19
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 19 distinct verses.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 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 19 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Jeremiah 11 verses 58%
- Deuteronomy 1 verse 5%
- 1 Kings 1 verse 5%
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 19 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 15 verses · 79%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 16%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 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: Pluck up 3×, I will pluck up 2×
- American Standard Version: I will pluck up 2×, Pluck up 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Uproot 3×, Be uprooted 2×, I will uproot 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Uproot 3×, I will pluck up 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H5428 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 H5428 across 22 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 18 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 H5428 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 H5428 across 22 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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. This entry also uses 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 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
- Pf. 3 ms. וְנָתַשׁ consec. 1 K 14:15; 2 ms. נָתַשְׁתָּ ψ 9:7, etc.; Impf. 3 ms. sf. וַיִּתְּשֵׁם Dt 29:27; 1 s. אֶתּשׁ Je 12:14, אֶתּוֹשׁ 24:6; 42:10; Inf. abs. נָתוֹשׁ Je 12:17; cstr. לִנְתֿוֹשׁ Je 1:10; 18:7, לִנְתֹשׁ 31:28 (on תֿ v. Ges§ 45 g); sf. נָתְשִׁי 12:15; Pt. act. נֹתֵשׁ 45:4, sf. נֹתְשָׁם 12:14;—pull or pluck up, c. acc. Asherim Mi 5:13 (מִקִּרְבֶּ֑ךָ); especially of nation, וְנ׳ אֶת־יִשׂ׳ מֵעַל הָאֲדָמָה 1 K 14:15, so Dt 29:27; Je 12:14; 2 Ch 7:20; אֶתּשׁ מִתּוֹכָם Je 12:14; without מֵעַל וְגו׳ Je 12:15, 17; opp. נָטַע 45:4; obj. om. 24:6; 42:10 (both opp. נָטַע); so inf. abs. נָתוֹשׁ וְאַבֵּד 12:17; inf. cstr. לִנְתֿוֹשׁ Je 1:10 = 18:7 cf. 31:28 (v. נתץ Qal 2 a); once of cities עָרִים נ׳ ψ 9:7 thou hast uprooted cities. e.g. 1 Kings 14:15
Niphal
- Impf. 3 ms. יִנָּתֵשׁ Je 31:40 it shall not be rooted up (‖ יֵהָרֵם, ref. to the city Jerus.); 3 fs. תִּנָּתֵשׁ Dn 11:4 of kingdom; 3 mpl. יִנָּֽתְשׁוּ מֵעַל אַדְמָתָם Am 9:15 (of Isr.; opp. נָטַע).—For יִנָּֽתְשׁוּ. Je 18:14 read יִנָּֽשְׁתוּ √ נשׁת q.v. e.g. Jeremiah 31:40
Hophal
- Impf. 3 fs. וַתֻּתַּשׁ Ez 19:12 and she was rooted up (of Isr., under fig. of vine). e.g. Ezekiel 19:12
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. pull or pluck up, root out, especially in Je and later (Ecclus Impf. 3 fs. תנתש נטע 3:9; NH = BH; 𝔗 נְתַשׁ id.; Syriac ܢܬܰܫ tear off, away; Arabic نَتَشَ is loan-wd. Frä 137);—
— 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.
נָתַשׁ
- to break loose, tear off.
- to be torn loose, be released. Lev. R. s. 29; Gen. R. s. 56, v. נָטַשׁ II a. נָתַר I.
- to uproot. Gen. R. s. 23, beg. (play on מתושאל, Gen. IV, 18) מַתִּישָׁן אני וכ׳ I shall tear them out of this world.—[הֵתֵישׁ or הִתִּישׁ to weaken, v. תָּשַׁשׁ.] e.g. Genesis 4:18
*נְתַשׁ
- h. same. Targ. Ps. CXVIII, 10, sq. אֶתְּשִׁינוּן (ed. Lag. אֶתּוֹשִׁינוּן; Regia a. Levita אֶתּוֹשְׁשִׁי׳), v. תְּשַׁשׁ
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 20 distinct written forms H5428 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.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 18 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 19 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
- Deuteronomy 29:28
- 2 Chronicles 7:20
- Psalms 9:6
- Jeremiah 1:10
- Ezekiel 19:12
- Daniel 11:4
- Amos 9:15
- Micah 5:14
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.
