Hebrew word · H4868

מִשְׁבָּת

mishbateha

annihilation

Cessation, stopping, annihilation, according to BDB; derived from shavat, 'to stop, cease, come to rest'. It appears only here in the Hebrew Bible, so its sense rests on its root, the context and the ancient versions.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

cessation, annihilation

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 Lamentations 1:7

Range of meaning

Cessation, stopping, annihilation, according to BDB; derived from shavat, 'to stop, cease, come to rest'. It appears only here in the Hebrew Bible, so its sense rests on its root, the context and the ancient versions.

Against the English

KJV has 'sabbaths', YLT 'cessation', WEB 'desolations', BSB and ESV 'downfall', NIV 'destruction', NASB 'ruin'. YLT is closest to the root. The modern choices are sound in sense but lose the idea of stopping. KJV gives a different picture altogether.

How it drifted

The word's root is the same as that of shabbat, and the Latin Vulgate rendered it 'sabbata'. English Bibles dependent on that tradition, including the KJV, carried it forward. Hebrew has a separate ordinary word for sabbath, and this is not it.

Used elsewhere in the period

The only occurrence is here. The Septuagint has 'at her deportation'. The Dead Sea Scrolls copy 4QLam is reported to have the similar-looking 'her breaking'. The verb shavat is used of God making joy, feasts and sabbaths stop in Hosea 2:11, and Lamentations 2:6 says that YHWH caused festival and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, using the ordinary word there.

Where it appears

Lamentations · 1

  1. Lamentations 1:7 מִשְׁבַּתֶּֽהָ׃ ס annihilation<s> her

    In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands she received no help. Her enemies looked upon her, laughing at her downfall.

    Here: 'Her ceasing', the stopping of everything that made her a living city. This rare word appears only here, comes from the verb 'to stop', and sounds like 'sabbath' without being the word for it.

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