צָמַת
to cut off
‘to cut off’ is one of 6 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Hiphil verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Pilpel
- A reduplicated intensive stem of two-letter or hollow roots. Here: ‘thine alarms have annihilated me’
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘they have put an end to my life’
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- 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”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
State
- 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).
1 distinct verse where H6789 appears in the Pilpel 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.
Psalms 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 צמת centers on the idea of “to cut off.” Psalms dominates its distribution — 10 of 14 verses. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 14 verses — uncommon. First canonically at 2 Samuel 22:41, it enters the text early. Across 5 stems, its meaning turns on the binyan (Qal, Niphal). Dig into 14-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H6789 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 →
- 14
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 14 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 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 14 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 14 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 13 verses · 93%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 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: I might destroy 2×, Shall cut them off 2×
- American Standard Version: Me 2×, Will cut them off 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Destroy them 2×, I destroyed 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: I will destroy 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H6789 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 H6789 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 H6789 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 H6789 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 one or more reduplicated stems (the Pōlēl/Pilpēl type), which for hollow or geminate roots behave much like Piel — often intensive or iterative.
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
- they have put an end to my life
Niphal
- . be ended, annihilated
Piel
- . hath put an end to me
Pi‛lēl
- thine alarms have annihilated me
Hiphil
- . exterminate, annihilate
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
[ צָמַת ] vb. put an end to, exterminate
— 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.
צָמַת
- (b. h.) [to be pressed together,]
- 1. to meet, join. Ḥull. 76ᵃ צוֹמְתִין, v. צוֹמֶת.
- 2. to be smashed. B. Kam. 85ᵇ הכהו … וצָמְתָה ידו וכ׳ if one struck his neighbor on his hand, and his hand was smashed, but is expected to recover; Y. Naz. IX, end, 58ᵃ
- 3. to contract; to reduce a swelling by applications of vinegar, wine &c. Pes. 40ᵃ שורן … וחומץ צוֹמְתָן he steeps the barley-corns in vinegar, and this binds them (prevents moisture from penetrating and creating fermentation); v. צָפַד. Sabb. 109ᵃ … מי שנגפה צוֹמְתָהּ ביין (Ar. בחומץ) he whose hand or foot was struck, may apply wine (vinegar) to reduce the swelling (on the Sabbath).
- [to press together,]
- 1. to heap up, store, save. Gen. R. s. 83, end אבותיך מְצַמְּתִים ואתה מבזבז thy ancestors saved, and thou squanderest; Yalk. ib. 140 מְצַמְצְמִין; Yalk. Chr. 1074 מצומצמים (read מצמ׳).
- 2. to gather together, summon to a meeting. Y’lamd. to Gen. XLVI, 28 quot. in Ar. (play on צמתך, Cant. IV, 1) שהוא מְצַמְּתָן … בצמאה he summons them to the synagogues, and they drink the words of the Law with thirst.—Part. pass. מְצוּמָּת; pl. מְצוּמָּתִים, מְצוּמָּתִין a) restrained, abstemious, self-controlled. Cant. R. to VI, 7 (ref. to צמתך, ib.) על הצנועין ועל המצ׳ שבכם of the chaste and self-controlled among you.—b) summoned to follow, follower. Pesik. Haʿomer, p. 70ᵇ (ref. to צמים, Job V, 5) אברהם וכל המצ׳ לו Abraham and all his followers; Lev. R. s. 28; Pesik. R. s. 18; Yalk. Job 898. e.g. Song of Solomon 4:1
- to be quashed; (denom. of צְמִיתוּת) to be sold for ever, not to be recovered in the jubilee. B. Mets. 79ᵃ (ref. to לצמיתת, Lev. XXV, 30) מי שאין שם יובל נִצְמֶתֶת וכ׳ that which without the law concerning the jubilee would be sold for ever, is recovered by dint of the jubilee; יצאת זו … אינה נצמתת which excludes a case like this (a sale for sixty years), where the sale would not be perpetual even if the law of jubilee did not exist at all. e.g. Leviticus 25:30
צְמַת
- 1. to contract, detain; to reduce a swelling.—Ḥull. 93ᵇ מִצְמַת צָמְתֵי ליה they have the effect of condensing the surface of the flesh (binding the blood in the veins). Sot. 20ᵇ פחדא צָמֵית, v. בִּיעֲתוּתָא. Sabb. 109ᵃ קא צמית ליה בחלא was bathing his foot in vinegar (on the Sabbath) to reduce the swelling; a. e.
- 2. to assemble, meet. Y. Dem. I, 22ᵃ top גזר עליהון וצָמְתוּן he conjured them (the mice), and they came together.
- to assemble, call, summon to a meeting. Y. Peah VIII, 21ᵃ top מַצְמֵית וכ׳ (or מְצַמֵּית), v. סְכַן II. Y. Succ. V, beg. 55ᵃ ר׳ לוי … מיעול מְצַמְּתָא קהלא וכ׳ R. L. and R. J. … received (alternately) two Selas to go around and call the congregation together for R. J. (to listen to his lecture); Gen. R. s. 98 למצמתא (not צמצ׳). Gen. R. s. 22 עד … מצמית לון while he was collecting them (picking up the scattered loaves). Y. Sot. I, 17ᵇ bot. אזל וצַמֵּת ליה וכ׳ he (Absalom) went and summoned (to accompany him) two men at a time, until he had collected two hundred men; Num. R. s. 9. Y. Kidd. IV, end, 66ᵈ ומצמית ליה פריטין and saved a little money.
- 1. to be gathered together, meet. Snh. 109ᵇ יומא דהוו מִצְטַמְּתִין קמת וכ׳ Ar. (missing in ed.) on that day when the Korahites were to meet, she (On’s wife) arose and gave him wine to drink &c.
- 2. to be pressed, want. Lam. R. to I, 1 (רבתי) אִצְטְמִיתִינָן Ar., v. צַמְצֵם.
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 15 distinct written forms H6789 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 H6789, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 14 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
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.
