Hebrew word · H7612
שֵׁאת
hashet
devastation
Appears only here. Standard lexicons (BDB, HALOT) connect it with the verb šāʾâ, 'to crash, lie in ruins' (Isa 6:11, 'until cities lie waste'). Related nouns are šəʾiyyâ, 'ruin' (Isa 24:12, again in Isa 24), and šôʾâ, 'devastating storm, ruin' (Zeph 1:15; Prov 1:27).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) ruin, devastation
1a) meaning doubtful
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 3:47
- Range of meaning
Appears only here. Standard lexicons (BDB, HALOT) connect it with the verb šāʾâ, 'to crash, lie in ruins' (Isa 6:11, 'until cities lie waste'). Related nouns are šəʾiyyâ, 'ruin' (Isa 24:12, again in Isa 24), and šôʾâ, 'devastating storm, ruin' (Zeph 1:15; Prov 1:27).
- Against the English
KJV 'desolation', BSB/ESV/WEB 'devastation', NIV 'ruin'. All are reasonable guesses at a word found only once. The word's root sense is the crash of collapse more than the emptiness that follows.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Ancient translators found it difficult. The Septuagint appears to read 'lifting up', and the Vulgate has 'vaticinatio' ('prophecy'). Both seem to have derived the word from nāśāʾ, 'to lift' (compare maśśāʾ, 'oracle, burden').
Where it appears
Lamentations · 1
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Lamentations 3:47 הַשֵּׁ֥את <the> devastation
Panic and pitfall have come upon us—devastation and destruction.
Here: A word found only here. It is most likely related to šāʾâ, 'to crash into ruins', and pictures a city collapsing into rubble. 'The' points to a specific, known catastrophe: the fall of Jerusalem.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.