Hebrew word · H7492
רָעַץ
tir'atz
to shatter
Shatter, smash, crush. A rare word. Its only other occurrence is Judg 10:8, where Israel's oppressors "shattered and crushed" them (paired with ratsats, "crush").
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
(Qal) to shatter
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
- Range of meaning
Shatter, smash, crush. A rare word. Its only other occurrence is Judg 10:8, where Israel's oppressors "shattered and crushed" them (paired with ratsats, "crush").
- Against the English
KJV "dashed in pieces" and BSB "shattered" catch its violence well. YLT "crush" is a little softer. The main English disagreement is about tense: "has shattered" / "shattered" (BSB, NIV, KJV) against "shatters" / "dashes" (ESV, NASB, WEB).
- Used elsewhere in the period
Judg 10:8. Related Semitic roots carry the sense of breaking or crushing. HALOT and BDB both give "shatter".
Where it appears
Exodus · 1
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Exodus 15:6 תִּרְעַ֥ץ it shattered
Your right hand, O LORD, is majestic in power; Your right hand, O LORD, has shattered the enemy.
Here: A rare, violent verb, "smash to pieces". Its feminine form agrees with "right hand". In old Hebrew poetry this verb form can tell a past event ("shattered", the Red Sea victory) or describe what the hand always does ("shatters"), and translations split over which.
Judges · 1
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Judges 10:8 וַֽיִּרְעֲצ֤וּ and they shattered
who that very year harassed and oppressed the Israelites, and they did so for eighteen years to all the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.