Hebrew word · H1638

גָּרַס

garesah

to break

To crush or grind. The active form means to break something into fragments; the simple, intransitive form used here means to be crushed or worn down. It belongs to the same word family as gereś, 'crushed or groats' (Leviticus 2:14, 16), the coarsely ground new grain offered to God.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to be crushed, be broken

1a) (Qal) to be crushed

1b) (Hiphil) to crush, break (the teeth)

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Psalm 119:20

Range of meaning

To crush or grind. The active form means to break something into fragments; the simple, intransitive form used here means to be crushed or worn down. It belongs to the same word family as gereś, 'crushed or groats' (Leviticus 2:14, 16), the coarsely ground new grain offered to God.

Against the English

KJV 'breaketh' and YLT 'broken' keep the physical picture. BSB, WEB, NIV and ESV say 'consumed', which keeps the intensity but trades grinding for burning or using up. NASB 'crushed' is closest to the Hebrew.

How it drifted

No drift in the word itself. Modern versions smoothed a jarring image into an idiom ('consumed with longing') that English speakers already know.

Used elsewhere in the period

Only two occurrences in the Hebrew Bible: here and Lamentations 3:16 ('He has broken my teeth with gravel'), where it describes violent grinding. The Greek Septuagint drops the image and has 'my soul longed to desire' (epepothēsen), so its translators apparently read it as a figure for intense desire.

Where it appears

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 119:20 גָּרְסָ֣ה it is crushed

    My soul is consumed with longing for Your judgments at all times.

    Here: Comes first in the line for emphasis: 'crushed is…'. A rare verb for grinding or crushing, as grain is crushed or teeth are broken on gravel (Lamentations 3:16). The longing is so strong it grinds the speaker down. It also supplies the letter gimel this stanza of the acrostic needs.

Lamentations · 1

  1. Lamentations 3:16 וַיַּגְרֵ֤ס and he has broken

    He has ground my teeth with gravel and trampled me in the dust.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.