שָׁמַד
to destroy
also: exterminate, be destroyed, be exterminated 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”). Here: ‘annihilate’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
Form
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- 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).
- 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).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Cohortative
- A first-person volitional form expressing wish or resolve (“let me / let us write”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
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.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
5 verses where H8045 appears in the Hiphil stem in the Book of Isaiah. 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
- Isaiah 10:7 לְ/הַשְׁמִ֣יד prep + Hiphil inf.cs However he doesn't mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.
- Isaiah 13:9 יַשְׁמִ֥יד Hiphil impf 3ms Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy the sinners of it out of it.
- Isaiah 14:23 הַשְׁמֵ֔ד Hiphil inf.abs I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says Yahweh of Hosts.
- Isaiah 23:11 לַ/שְׁמִ֖ד prep + Hiphil inf.cs He has stretched out his hand over the sea, he has shaken the kingdoms: Yahweh has given commandment concerning Canaan, to destroy the strongholds of it.
- Isaiah 26:14 וַ/תַּשְׁמִידֵ֔/ם conj + Hiphil wimpf 2ms + sfx pers 3mp [They are] dead, they shall not live; [they are] deceased, they shall not rise: therefore have you visited and destroyed them, and made all memory of them to perish.
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 destroy” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb שמד (shâmad). Beyond “to destroy” it also covers “exterminate”, “be destroyed”, and “be exterminated” — see its full sense range. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 86 verses — moderately common. More than a third of its appearances fall in Deuteronomy. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 34:30. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8045 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 →
- 86
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 86 distinct verses.
- 25 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 25 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #462
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 462 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 86 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Deuteronomy 28 verses 33%
- Joshua 6 verses 7%
- Psalms 6 verses 7%
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 86 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 37 verses · 43%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 31 verses · 36%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 18 verses · 21%
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: Destroy 15×, Destroyed 10×, I will destroy 5×
- American Standard Version: Destroy 16×, Destroyed 10×, I will destroy 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Destroy 11×, Will be destroyed 6×, Destruction 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Destroy 15×, I will destroy 5×, You are destroyed 5×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8045 across 90 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 40 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 H8045 across 90 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 45 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 H8045 across 88 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 37 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8045 across 97 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 40 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.
Hiphil
- 1. annihilate, exterminate
- 2. destroy
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
[ שָׁמַד ] 90 vb. Niph. be exterminated, destroyed
— 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.
שָׁמַד
- Hif.; cmp. שמם, to be waste.
- [to destroy,] to persecute; to force to apostasy. Gen. R. s. 82 ואם לאו הרי אני מְשַׁמֵּד אתכם and if you cannot answer, I will force you to forswear your religion; Yalk. Is. 263 אַשְׁמִיד (Hif.).—Part. pass. מְשׁוּמָּד converted to heathenism, q. v.
- 1. to destroy. Esth. R. to III, 6 אני אמרתי להַשְׁמִידָם … להַשְׁמִיד וכ׳ I (the Lord) intended to destroy them, and, as it were, could not …, and thou wilt destroy, slay &c.? Ib. to III, 12; a. e.
- 2. to force to apostasy, v. supra.
- 1. to be destroyed, cut off. Yalk. Lev. 558 דואג נ׳ מעולם וכ׳ Doeg was cut off from this and from the other world; (Tanḥ. M’tsorʿa 2 נשתרש).
- 2. to apostatize. Y. Gitt. VII, beg. 48ᶜ. Y. Hor. I, 45ᵈ bot. Y. Succ. V, end, 55ᶜ מרים … שׁנִשְׁתַּמְּדָה וכ׳ Miriam … who renounced her religion, and married a Roman officer; Tosef. Succ. IV, 28ᵈ; Bab. Succ. 56ᵇ Ms. M. (ed. שהמירה דתה).
שְׁמַד
- to force to apostasy. Y. Shebi. IV, 35ᵃ bot. לא מתכוון מְשַמַּדְתְּכוֹן he has no intention to make you abandon your religion (to persecute you for your religion’s sake), but only to collect taxes &c.; Y. Snh. III, 21ᵇ top משמדתהון (corr. acc.). Ib. לא אתכוון מְשַׁמַּדְתְּהוֹן וכ׳ he had no intention to force them to violate their religious laws, but merely wanted to eat fresh bread; Y. Shebi. l. c. מְשַׁמַּדְתּוֹן.
- to renounce one’s religion, apostatize. Targ. O. Ex. XII, 43 (h. text בן נכר).—Kidd. 72ᵃ שמתינהו … ואִישְׁתַּמּוּד R. A. excommunicated them, and they renounced Judaism.
שְׁמָד
- (preced.) [attempt at destruction,] religious persecution. Tosef. Ab. Zar. V (VI), 6 בי מוסייאות … שעת הש׳ אע"פ שעבר הש׳ וכ׳ altars which gentiles have put up at a time of religious persecution are forbidden (as to the use of the materials) even after the persecution is over; Y. ib. V, 45ᵃ top; Bab. ib. 54ᵃ Ms. M. (ed. בשעת הגזירה). Tosef. Sabb. XV (XVI), 17 במה דברים אמורים שלא בשעת הש׳ אבל בשעת הש׳ וכ׳ this (that one may violate religious laws to save his life) is said only when there is no general religious persecution, but during a persecution one must give up his life even for the least essential law; Snh. 74ᵃ Ms. M. (ed. גזירת המלכות). Cant. R. to II, 5 שלפי הש׳, v. שֶׁלֶף; Sabb. 60ᵃ Ms. M. (ed. הגזרה); a. fr.—Pl. שְׁמָדִים, שְׁמָדִין. Gen. R. s. 67 (ref. to Gen. XXVII, 40) אם ראית … גזור עליו ש׳ וכ׳ when thou (Esau-Rome) seest thy brother (Jacob) cast off the yoke of the Law, decree persecutions over him, and thou shalt have power over him. Midr. Till. to Ps. XVIII, 5 שכמה ש׳ גזרו עלינו בימיה for they decreed many persecutions over us in her (Rome’s) days; a. e. e.g. Genesis 27:40
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 85 distinct written forms H8045 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 25 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8045, 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 82 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 86 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 34:30
- Leviticus 26:30
- Numbers 33:52
- Deuteronomy 1:27
- Joshua 7:12
- Judges 21:16
- 1 Samuel 24:21
- 2 Samuel 14:7
- 1 Kings 13:34
- 2 Kings 10:17
- 1 Chronicles 5:25
- 2 Chronicles 20:10
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.
