פָּצָה
to open
‘to open’ 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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘open mouth’
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
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”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 4 times (27%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 3 times (20%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (7%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 15 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H6475 appears — 15 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.
Genesis 1 verse
Numbers 1 verse
Deuteronomy 1 verse
Judges 2 verses
- Judges 11:35 פָּצִ֤יתִי Qal pf 1cs It happened, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! you have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to Yahweh, and I can't go back.
- Judges 11:36 פָּצִ֤יתָה Qal pf 2ms She said to him, My father, you have opened your mouth to Yahweh; do to me according to that which has proceeded out of your mouth, because Yahweh has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, even on the children of Ammon.
Job 1 verse
Psalms 5 verses
- Psalms 22:13 פָּצ֣וּ Qal pf 3cp They open their mouths wide against me, Lions tearing prey and roaring.
- Psalms 66:14 פָּצ֥וּ Qal pf 3cp which my lips promised, And my mouth spoke, when I was in distress.
- Psalms 144:7 פְּצֵ֣/נִי Qal impv 2ms + sfx pers 1cs Stretch out your hand from above, Rescue me, and deliver me out of great waters, Out of the hands of foreigners;
- Psalms 144:10 הַ֭/פּוֹצֶה ptcl def.art + Qal ptcp.act ms You are he who gives salvation to kings, Who rescues David, his servant, from the deadly sword.
- Psalms 144:11 פְּצֵ֥/נִי Qal impv 2ms + sfx pers 1cs Rescue me, and deliver me out of the hands of foreigners, Whose mouths speak deceit, Whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
Isaiah 1 verse
Lamentations 2 verses
- Lamentations 2:16 פָּצ֨וּ Qal pf 3cp All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
- Lamentations 3:46 פָּצ֥וּ Qal pf 3cp All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
Ezekiel 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.
The Hebrew verb פצה centers on the idea of “to open.” Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 4:11. It turns up in 15 verses across 9 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to Psalms (33%), then Judges and Lamentations. The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. Dig into 15-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6475 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 →
- 15
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 15 distinct verses.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,836
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,836 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 15 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Psalms 5 verses 33%
- Judges 2 verses 13%
- Lamentations 2 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 15 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 53%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 27%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 20%
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: Open 3×, Have opened 2×, Rid 2×
- American Standard Version: Open 3×, Have opened 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Open 3×, Opened 2×, Opens 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Opened 3×, Break me free 2×, Have opened 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6475 across 15 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H6475 across 15 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H6475 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H6475 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 5 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 fs. פָּֽצְתָה Gn 4:11 +, 2 ms. פָּצִיתָ Ju 11:36, etc.; Impf. 3 ms. יִפְצֶה Jb 35:16; Imv. ms. פְּצֵה Ez 2:8, sf. פְּצֵנִי ψ 144:7, 11; Pt. פֹּצֶה Is 10:14, פּוֹ׳ ψ 144:10;— e.g. Genesis 4:11
- 1. open mouth:
- a. to swallow, fig. of ground, הָאֲדָמָה Gn 4:11 (J), Nu 16:30 (JE), הָאָרֶץ Dt 11:6; of enemies, + עַל pers. La 2:16; 3:46 ψ 22:14; lit. Ez 2:8. e.g. Genesis 4:11
- b. to speak Ju 11:35, 36 (utter a vow, + אֶל־י׳); Jb 35:16; hence = utter, אֲשֶׁר פָּצוּ שְׁפָתַי ψ 66:14; of bird chirping פֹּצֶה פֶה Is 10:14 (in fig.). e.g. Judges 11:35
- 2. snatch away, set free (Aramaic loan-word), only ψ 144, + הִצִּיל c. מִן v 7, 11; פ׳ c. מִן v 10. e.g. Psalms 144:7
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. part, open (Arabic فَصَى i, ii. separate, remove; Aramaic פְּצָא especially set free, ܦܰܨܺܐ Pa. set free);—
— 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
Forms in the corpus
The 14 distinct written forms H6475 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| פָּצ֥וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Lamentations 3:46 | 2 |
| הַ֭/פּוֹצֶה | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 144:10 | 1 |
| וּ/פָצְתָ֨ה | Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Numbers 16:30 | 1 |
| וּ/פֹצֶ֥ה | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 10:14 | 1 |
| יִפְצֶה | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Job 35:16 | 1 |
| פְּצֵ֣/נִי | Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 144:7 | 1 |
| פְּצֵ֣ה | Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ezekiel 2:8 | 1 |
| פְּצֵ֥/נִי | Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 144:11 | 1 |
| פָּצ֣וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Psalms 22:13 | 1 |
| פָּצ֨וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Lamentations 2:16 | 1 |
| פָּצְתָ֣ה | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Genesis 4:11 | 1 |
| פָּצְתָ֤ה | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Deuteronomy 11:6 | 1 |
| פָּצִ֤יתִי | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Judges 11:35 | 1 |
| פָּצִ֤יתָה | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Judges 11:36 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 15 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 4:11
- Numbers 16:30
- Deuteronomy 11:6
- Judges 11:35
- Job 35:16
- Psalms 144:7
- Isaiah 10:14
- Lamentations 2:16
- Ezekiel 2:8
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.
