Hebrew word · H6979

קָרַר

vekarkar

to cool

Qarqar is a doubled, intensive form usually taken from qur/qarar, 'dig, tear down'. It means battering, demolishing, undermining. Qir is a wall, especially a city or house wall.

Appears 6 times in 5 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

(Qal) to bore, dig, dig for water

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 Isaiah 22:5

Range of meaning

Qarqar is a doubled, intensive form usually taken from qur/qarar, 'dig, tear down'. It means battering, demolishing, undermining. Qir is a wall, especially a city or house wall.

Against the English

'Breaking down the walls' (BSB, KJV), 'battering down of walls' (ESV) and 'digging down a wall' (YLT) all convey demolition. BSB and others make 'wall' plural, which loses the single city wall.

Used elsewhere in the period

The verb appears in the same form in Num 24:17, where Balaam's star from Jacob 'tears down all the sons of Sheth'. Some scholars connect the sound with an Arabic root qarqara ('to make a rumbling noise') and suggest a meaning like 'a roaring of shouting'. That proposal is possible but less widely followed.

From the study of Isaiah 37:25

Range of meaning

"To dig" (for water), used only here and in the parallel 2 Kgs 19:24. A related root gives maqor, "spring, fountain" (Jer 2:13), and a noun from it may sit behind Jer 6:7 (a well "gushing" water).

Against the English

Most English versions add "wells" (BSB, NIV, ESV, NASB). The Hebrew has no object, only "I dug." "Wells" is a fair reading because the related words are about water sources, but the English adds it.

Used elsewhere in the period

Its link to maqor ("source of water") is noted in BDB and HALOT. Assyrian royal inscriptions boast of crossing waterless country and of great water projects. Sennacherib's canals and aqueduct bringing water to Nineveh (e.g. the Jerwan aqueduct) are well known. The hard desert crossing to Egypt is described in Esarhaddon's later inscriptions.

From the study of Jeremiah 6:7

Range of meaning

A causative form of a root meaning "to be cool." Here it means "to keep cool, keep fresh": the way a living well keeps its water cold and sweet by constantly renewing it. The forms are unusual, and some readers connect them with a nearly identical root, qur, "to dig" (2 Kings 19:24), and with its noun maqor, "spring, fountain" (Jeremiah 2:13, "the fountain of living water"). On that reading the verb means "to well up, gush."

Against the English

ESV and NASB: "keeps … fresh" (the cool/fresh reading). KJV: "casteth out." NIV and BSB: "pours out" / "gushes." WEB: "produces." YLT: "digging." Every option pictures a source that keeps supplying. They differ in whether the stress falls on freshness or on how much flows out.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Septuagint (ψύχει, "cools") and the Latin Vulgate (frigidam facit, "makes cold") both read "cool." That is early evidence for the "keep cool/fresh" sense, which most modern lexicons (e.g. HALOT) adopt. The "spring" connection draws on maqor in Jeremiah 2:13 and 17:13.

Where it appears

Numbers · 1

  1. Numbers 24:17 וְקַרְקַ֖ר and it will destroy

    I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come forth from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel. He will crush the skulls of Moab and strike down all the sons of Sheth.

    Here: As the Hebrew text is pointed, it reads 'and he will tear down', from a root meaning to break down a wall. The Samaritan Pentateuch and Jeremiah 48:45 have qodqod, 'crown of the head', which continues the picture of a skull. The supplied data tags the word as a noun, which fits that second reading.

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 19:24 קַ֔רְתִּי I have dug

    I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

Isaiah · 2

  1. Isaiah 22:5 מְקַרְקַ֥ר a breaking down of

    For the Lord GOD of Hosts has set a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the Valley of Vision—of breaking down the walls and crying to the mountains.

    Here: A rare intensive verb form meaning to tear or batter down, used also in Numbers 24:17. Its doubled 'qar-qar' sound, set beside 'qir', mimics the pounding of a battering ram.

  2. Isaiah 37:25 קַ֖רְתִּי I have dug

    I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

    Here: "I dug," a completed action. The verb is rare and is used for digging out a source of water. No object is stated. "Wells" is the natural sense, but English versions add the word themselves. The picture is an army that makes its own water in dry country.

Jeremiah · 2

  1. Jeremiah 6:7 כְּהָקִ֥יר הֵקֵ֣רָה as keeps cool, it has kept cool

    As a well gushes its water, so she pours out her evil. Violence and destruction resound in her; sickness and wounds are ever before Me.

    Here: A comparison word ("as") plus a causative verb in its infinitive form: "as [a well] keeps [its water] cool and fresh." A spring-fed well never runs stale, because new cold water keeps coming up into it. Some translations take it as "gushes" or "pours out" instead (see debates).

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