{"lemma":"ברא","language":"hebrew","strongs":"H1254","transliteration":"ba.ra","partOfSpeech":"verb","pronunciation":"bah-RAH","meanings":[{"id":1,"definition":"to create, to bring something into being; in the Bible, always an act of God.","explanation":"Two things set this word apart, and neither is the act of producing something.\n\n- First, only God is ever the one who does it: no person, craftsman, or nation ever creates in this sense.\n- Second, it never mentions the stuff God works with, the way ordinary words for making or shaping do.\n\nSo it points to God bringing something about, not to God assembling it from materials already on hand.\n\nThose two features are why it became Israel's special word for God's creating, and why debates about creation out of nothing gather around it. But the word on its own only insists that the work is uniquely God's. It does not by itself say whether God worked from nothing, gave the world its order and roles, or shaped what was already there; those are questions the rest of the Bible and later teaching take up.\n\nThe same word stretches from the making of the world to the brand new things God does later in history: a people, a rescue, even a judgment he sends. The prophets of the exile, especially in the second half of Isaiah, lean on it on purpose. Against the gods of Babylon they insist that the God who made the heavens and the earth is the same God who is about to make Israel new.","translatability":"approximate","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Create\" carries most of the sense but quietly hides that the verb is reserved to God alone and never names the material used.","scholarlyCertainty":"settled","certaintyExplanation":"Scholars agree on what the verb means even though debate over creation from nothing is theological, not lexical.","disputes":[{"issue":"Whether this word by itself teaches that God created out of nothing.","positions":[{"view":"No. The word marks creating as God's unique act and never names any material, but it does not by itself assert creation from nothing; that idea is drawn from the wider Bible and later theology.","heldBy":[{"citation":"Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 2nd ed. (1951)","type":"monograph"},{"citation":"Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary (1984)","type":"commentary"},{"citation":"Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (1989)","type":"commentary"},{"citation":"Werner H. Schmidt, \"ברא,\" in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 2:242-249","type":"dictionary"},{"citation":"Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo (1994)","type":"monograph"}],"status":"majority"},{"view":"Yes. Because only God is ever its subject and no raw material is ever mentioned, the word itself implies creation out of nothing.","heldBy":[{"citation":"Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, Creation Out of Nothing (2004)","type":"monograph"}],"status":"minority"}]},{"issue":"What the word's core action is: bringing something into being, giving it a role in an ordered world, or setting things apart.","positions":[{"view":"Bringing something into being, that is, to create. This is the established reading of the standard lexicons and of every major translation.","heldBy":[{"citation":"HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. ברא","type":"lexicon"},{"citation":"BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. ברא","type":"lexicon"},{"citation":"DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. ברא","type":"lexicon"}],"status":"majority"},{"view":"Giving something a function or role within an ordered world, rather than producing its matter.","heldBy":[{"citation":"John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (2011)","type":"monograph"}],"status":"minority"},{"view":"Spatially separating or setting things apart, proposed for the Genesis account and criticized in the peer-reviewed literature.","heldBy":[{"citation":"Ellen van Wolde, \"Why the Verb ברא Does Not Mean to Create in Genesis 1.1-2.4a,\" JSOT 34 (2009)","type":"article"}],"status":"minority"}]}],"senses":[{"id":"1a","definition":"to make the world and the first human beings, the original work of creation at the beginning.","passages":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","note":"Genesis 1:1 is read two ways: as a complete sentence (\"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth\") or as a dependent clause leading into verse 2 (\"When God began to create the heavens and the earth...\"). The choice affects whether the verse reports an absolute first act or sets the scene before God's first act. The positions are recorded below.","multivalent":false,"disputes":[{"issue":"Whether Genesis 1:1 is an independent sentence or a dependent clause leading into verse 2.","positions":[{"view":"An independent sentence: \"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.\"","heldBy":[{"citation":"Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part I (1961)","type":"commentary"},{"citation":"Gerhard F. Hasel, \"Recent Translations of Gen 1:1: A Critical Look,\" The Bible Translator 22 (1971)","type":"article"}],"status":"contested"},{"view":"A dependent clause: \"When God began to create the heavens and the earth...\"","heldBy":[{"citation":"E. A. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible (1964)","type":"commentary"},{"citation":"Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (1989)","type":"commentary"},{"citation":"Robert D. Holmstedt, \"The Restrictive Syntax of Genesis i 1,\" Vetus Testamentum 58 (2008)","type":"article"}],"status":"contested"}]}]},{"ref":"Genesis 1:21","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Genesis 1:27","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Genesis 2:3","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Genesis 5:1","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Genesis 5:2","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Genesis 6:7","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Deuteronomy 4:32","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Psalm 89:12","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Psalm 89:47","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 40:26","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 40:28","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 42:5","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 45:12","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 45:18","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Amos 4:13","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Ecclesiastes 12:1","note":null,"multivalent":false}],"translatability":"approximate","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Create\" carries most of the sense but quietly hides that the verb is reserved to God alone and never names the material used.","scholarlyCertainty":"settled","certaintyExplanation":"Scholars agree on what the verb means even though debate over creation from nothing is theological, not lexical."},{"id":"1b","definition":"to bring about something genuinely new in the course of history, whether a people, a rescue, a clean heart, or even a disaster God sends.","passages":[{"ref":"Numbers 16:30","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Psalm 51:10","note":"English Bibles cite this verse as Psalm 51:10 (\"create in me a clean heart\"); Hebrew Bibles number it 51:12, because they count the psalm's two-line heading as verses 1 and 2. It asks God to make something new within a person, the same creating word used for the world.","multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 4:5","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 41:20","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 43:1","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 43:7","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 43:15","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 45:7","note":"Here God is the one who creates darkness and disaster, not only light and good. Scholars take this as part of the exile-era insistence that nothing, not even calamity, lies outside the one God's reach; it is sometimes read instead as God ordering and assigning, rather than originating, these things.","multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 45:8","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 54:16","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 57:19","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 65:17","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 65:18","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Jeremiah 31:22","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Malachi 2:10","note":null,"multivalent":false}],"translatability":"approximate","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Create\" carries most of the sense but quietly hides that the verb is reserved to God alone and never names the material used.","scholarlyCertainty":"settled","certaintyExplanation":"Scholars agree on what the verb means even though debate over creation from nothing is theological, not lexical."},{"id":"1c","definition":"to be brought into being, spoken of the thing that comes to exist rather than of God doing the making.","passages":[{"ref":"Genesis 2:4","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Genesis 5:2","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Exodus 34:10","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Psalm 102:18","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Psalm 104:30","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Psalm 148:5","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Isaiah 48:7","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Ezekiel 21:30","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Ezekiel 28:13","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Ezekiel 28:15","note":null,"multivalent":false}],"translatability":"approximate","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Create\" carries most of the sense but quietly hides that the verb is reserved to God alone and never names the material used.","scholarlyCertainty":"settled","certaintyExplanation":"Scholars agree on what the verb means even though debate over creation from nothing is theological, not lexical."}]},{"id":2,"definition":"to clear away or cut down, as in clearing land of trees or striking people down.","explanation":"This is a completely separate word that happens to be spelled the same way, and it has nothing to do with creating. It simply means \"to cut or clear.\"\n\nIn Joshua it is the hard work of clearing a forest to open up land to settle, and in Ezekiel it is the picture of people being cut down in judgment. It shares a dictionary number with \"create\" only by an accident of spelling, which is exactly why a reader who knows only \"bara means create\" can walk right past it.\n\nA handful of scholars suspect this cutting sense and the creating sense go back to one original idea of cutting or separating, but the standard lexicons keep them apart as different words.","translatability":"direct","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Cut down\" or \"clear\" carries this separate word's meaning fully, with no real loss for the reader.","scholarlyCertainty":"settled","certaintyExplanation":"Lexicons agree this is a distinct word simply meaning to cut or clear, with no live debate over its sense.","senses":[{"id":"2a","definition":"to clear wooded land by cutting down its trees.","passages":[{"ref":"Joshua 17:15","note":null,"multivalent":false},{"ref":"Joshua 17:18","note":null,"multivalent":false}],"translatability":"direct","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Cut down\" or \"clear\" carries this separate word's meaning fully, with no real loss for the reader.","scholarlyCertainty":"settled","certaintyExplanation":"Lexicons agree this is a distinct word simply meaning to cut or clear, with no live debate over its sense."},{"id":"2b","definition":"to cut people down, used as a picture of judgment.","passages":[{"ref":"Ezekiel 23:47","note":null,"multivalent":false}],"translatability":"direct","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Cut down\" or \"clear\" carries this separate word's meaning fully, with no real loss for the reader.","scholarlyCertainty":"settled","certaintyExplanation":"Lexicons agree this is a distinct word simply meaning to cut or clear, with no live debate over its sense."},{"id":"2c","definition":"to carve or mark out, as in cutting a signpost.","passages":[{"ref":"Ezekiel 21:19","note":"Usually taken as \"mark out\" or \"carve\" a signpost, a use of the \"cut\" word (Hebrew Bibles number this verse 21:24). Yitzhaq Feder has argued it is instead a separate word borrowed from Akkadian meaning \"to mark or select,\" which would make it unrelated to both \"create\" and \"cut down.\"","multivalent":false}],"translatability":"direct","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Cut down\" or \"clear\" carries this separate word's meaning fully, with no real loss for the reader.","scholarlyCertainty":"settled","certaintyExplanation":"Lexicons agree this is a distinct word simply meaning to cut or clear, with no live debate over its sense."}]},{"id":3,"definition":"to grow fat, or to feed on rich food.","explanation":"This is the rarest of the three meanings and the least certain. In one place it describes gorging on the best of the offerings until fat; in another it describes refusing to eat.\n\nScholars do not agree on whether these two belong together, or whether the second is really a different word that simply means \"to eat.\" The grouping is a judgment call rather than a settled fact, and scholars remain divided over it.","translatability":"approximate","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Grow fat\" or \"feast\" renders the core action, but a reader would not know from the English that scholars are unsure the two occurrences even belong together.","scholarlyCertainty":"obscure","certaintyExplanation":"This is the rarest, least certain meaning, and scholars themselves are unsure whether its two occurrences share one sense.","senses":[{"id":"3a","definition":"to make oneself fat by gorging on the best food.","passages":[{"ref":"1 Samuel 2:29","note":null,"multivalent":false}],"translatability":"approximate","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Grow fat\" or \"feast\" renders the core action, but a reader would not know from the English that scholars are unsure the two occurrences even belong together.","scholarlyCertainty":"obscure","certaintyExplanation":"This is the rarest, least certain meaning, and scholars themselves are unsure whether its two occurrences share one sense."},{"id":"3b","definition":"to eat, to take food.","passages":[{"ref":"2 Samuel 12:17","note":null,"multivalent":false,"disputes":[{"issue":"Whether the form here belongs to this word's \"eat/fatten\" sense or to the separate verb barah, \"to eat.\"","positions":[{"view":"A distinct \"eat\" sense under this spelling.","heldBy":[{"citation":"HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. ברא","type":"lexicon"}],"status":"contested"},{"view":"The separate verb barah, \"to eat.\"","heldBy":[{"citation":"BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. ברה","type":"lexicon"}],"status":"contested"}]}]}],"translatability":"approximate","translatabilityExplanation":"\"Grow fat\" or \"feast\" renders the core action, but a reader would not know from the English that scholars are unsure the two occurrences even belong together.","scholarlyCertainty":"obscure","certaintyExplanation":"This is the rarest, least certain meaning, and scholars themselves are unsure whether its two occurrences share one sense."}]}],"cautions":"Two traps.\n\n- First, do not read \"creation out of nothing\" straight out of this word. It does tell us that creating is God's alone and unlike ordinary human making, but the idea of creation from nothing comes from the wider Bible and later teaching, not from this single word.\n- Second, this is a hidden look-alike: the same spelling also carries an unrelated \"cut down or clear away\" (Joshua, Ezekiel) and a rare \"grow fat\" (1 Samuel), and English Bibles translate them so differently that most readers never notice they share one dictionary form.","related":{"synonymsNuance":[{"lemma":"עָשָׂה","strongs":"H6213","distinction":"the everyday word for making or doing. It is used of anyone, God or people, and of working with materials at hand, so it is not reserved for God.","comparison":{"self":[{"point":"always has God as the one doing it, never a person; it is the special word for what only God can do","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 45:12","strongs":"H1254"}]},{"point":"marks bringing something genuinely new into being, including a fresh start or a wonder no one has seen before","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 65:17","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Numbers 16:30","strongs":"H1254"}]},{"point":"stays in the realm of lofty, weighty speech: the heavens, the human race, Israel as a people, the heart made clean","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:27","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 43:1","strongs":"H1254"}]}],"other":[{"point":"is the plain everyday word for making and doing, used of ordinary people at ordinary work","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 3:21","strongs":"H6213"},{"ref":"Exodus 25:8","strongs":"H6213"}]},{"point":"covers acting and conduct of every kind, the whole range of what a person does, good or bad","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 39:9","strongs":"H6213"},{"ref":"Genesis 18:25","strongs":"H6213"}]},{"point":"often means crafting or fashioning something out of materials already at hand","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 6:14","strongs":"H6213"},{"ref":"Exodus 25:18","strongs":"H6213"}]}],"shared":[{"point":"both describe God's work of making the world, and can even sit side by side in the same creation account","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Genesis 2:3","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Genesis 1:7","strongs":"H6213"},{"ref":"Genesis 2:2","strongs":"H6213"}]},{"point":"both speak of God forming humanity, so they overlap when the subject is how people came to be","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:27","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Genesis 1:26","strongs":"H6213"}]}],"generation":{"model":"claude-opus-4-8","generatedAt":"2026-06-06T08:07:33.071Z","promptVersion":"synonym-pair-v1","reviewStatus":"ai-generated","reviewedBy":null,"version":1}}},{"lemma":"יָצַר","strongs":"H3335","distinction":"to shape or mold, the way a potter works clay (as when God forms the man from dust in Genesis 2:7). It stresses shaping something out of what is already there.","comparison":{"self":[{"point":"stresses bringing something into being, with the focus on the new thing that now exists rather than on how it was shaped","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 65:18","strongs":"H1254"}]},{"point":"is reserved for God alone and carries a grand, unmatched weight that ordinary craft language does not","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:27","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 40:28","strongs":"H1254"}]}],"other":[{"point":"pictures shaping and molding, the way a potter works wet clay into a vessel","examples":[{"ref":"Jeremiah 18:4","strongs":"H3335"},{"ref":"Isaiah 29:16","strongs":"H3335"}]},{"point":"is also the plain word for a human craftsman at work, not only for God","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 44:9","strongs":"H3335"},{"ref":"Habakkuk 2:18","strongs":"H3335"}]},{"point":"fits God forming a person out of existing material and even planning a life ahead of time","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 2:7","strongs":"H3335"},{"ref":"Jeremiah 1:5","strongs":"H3335"}]}],"shared":[{"point":"both describe God making Israel his own people, and Isaiah pairs them in the same breath","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 43:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 43:7","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 43:1","strongs":"H3335"},{"ref":"Isaiah 43:7","strongs":"H3335"}]},{"point":"both name God as the maker of the world and all that is in it","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 45:18","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Amos 4:13","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 45:18","strongs":"H3335"},{"ref":"Amos 4:13","strongs":"H3335"}]}],"generation":{"model":"claude-opus-4-8","generatedAt":"2026-06-06T08:07:33.875Z","promptVersion":"synonym-pair-v1","reviewStatus":"ai-generated","reviewedBy":null,"version":1}}},{"lemma":"קָנָה","strongs":"H7069","distinction":"to get or acquire. In a few old poems it leans toward \"make\" or \"father\" (Genesis 14:19), but its main idea is owning, not bringing into being.","comparison":{"self":[{"point":"means to bring something into being, with God alone as the one who does it","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 45:18","strongs":"H1254"}]},{"point":"keeps its focus squarely on the act of creation and on fresh, never-before things God makes","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:27","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 65:17","strongs":"H1254"}]}],"other":[{"point":"ordinarily means to get or acquire, including buying something with money","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 33:19","strongs":"H7069"},{"ref":"Ruth 4:9","strongs":"H7069"}]},{"point":"is the everyday word for owning and possessing, from a field to a slave to wisdom itself","examples":[{"ref":"Proverbs 4:7","strongs":"H7069"}]},{"point":"in a few old poems leans toward making, fathering, or bringing forth, though even there the idea of God taking a people as his own stays close","examples":[{"ref":"Deuteronomy 32:6","strongs":"H7069"},{"ref":"Psalm 74:2","strongs":"H7069"}]}],"shared":[{"point":"both can point to God being the origin of his people or of a person, with create stating it plainly and acquire reaching for it in old poetry","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 43:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Genesis 14:19","strongs":"H7069"},{"ref":"Psalm 139:13","strongs":"H7069"}]}],"generation":{"model":"claude-opus-4-8","generatedAt":"2026-06-06T08:07:34.504Z","promptVersion":"synonym-pair-v1","reviewStatus":"ai-generated","reviewedBy":null,"version":1}}},{"lemma":"בנה","strongs":"H1129","distinction":null,"comparison":{"self":[{"point":"is God bringing something wholly new into being, never naming any material it is made from","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 65:17","strongs":"H1254"}]},{"point":"is reserved for God alone and carries a weight no ordinary making word does","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:27","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Malachi 2:10","strongs":"H1254"}]}],"other":[{"point":"is the ordinary work of construction, assembling a house, wall, or altar out of materials, done by people as much as by God","examples":[{"ref":"1 Kings 6:1","strongs":"H1129"},{"ref":"Genesis 8:20","strongs":"H1129"}]},{"point":"can mean rebuilding what lay in ruins or, figuratively, founding a family line","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 61:4","strongs":"H1129"},{"ref":"Ruth 4:11","strongs":"H1129"}]}],"shared":[{"point":"both belong to the prophets' hope of a remade world: God creates a new heavens and earth, and his people rebuild their ruined cities","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 65:17","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 65:21","strongs":"H1129"}]}],"generation":{"model":"claude-opus-4-8","generatedAt":"2026-06-06T11:43:38.485Z","promptVersion":"synonym-pair-v1","reviewStatus":"ai-generated","reviewedBy":null,"version":1}}},{"lemma":"נפח","strongs":"H5301","distinction":null,"comparison":{"self":[{"point":"Names God alone as the one who acts, and never the materials he works with: a uniquely divine bringing into being, from the world itself to a renewed people.","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 43:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Psalm 51:10","strongs":"H1254"}]},{"point":"Reaches beyond making to the wholly new things God does in history: forming a nation, working a rescue, even sending a judgment no one has seen before.","examples":[{"ref":"Exodus 34:10","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Numbers 16:30","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 65:17","strongs":"H1254"}]}],"other":[{"point":"Describes a concrete physical act of moving air: blowing on a fire to kindle or melt, and the breath of a person, done by people as much as by God.","examples":[{"ref":"Ezekiel 22:20","strongs":"H5301"},{"ref":"Job 41:20","strongs":"H5301"},{"ref":"Haggai 1:9","strongs":"H5301"}]},{"point":"Carries an edge of destruction and loss the other word never has: a fire blown to consume, a life that gasps out, hopes blown away.","examples":[{"ref":"Job 20:26","strongs":"H5301"},{"ref":"Jeremiah 15:9","strongs":"H5301"},{"ref":"Malachi 1:13","strongs":"H5301"}]}],"shared":[{"point":"Both touch the giving of human life: one word for God forming the living person, the other for the breath of life he blows into that person.","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:27","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Genesis 2:7","strongs":"H5301"}]},{"point":"They meet in one verse where God creates the craftsman and that craftsman blows the coals at his forge: the divine making frames the human blowing.","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 54:16","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Isaiah 54:16","strongs":"H5301"}]}],"generation":{"model":"claude-opus-4-8","generatedAt":"2026-06-28T14:23:53.225Z","promptVersion":"synonym-pair-v1","reviewStatus":"ai-generated","reviewedBy":null,"version":1}}}],"crossLanguage":[{"lemma":"κτίζω","language":"greek","strongs":"G2936","gloss":"to create","distinction":"the Greek verb for divine creation; the main New Testament word for God creating.","comparison":{"self":[{"point":"the exile-era prophets, especially in Isaiah, lean on this word on purpose: the God who made the heavens and the earth is the same God now remaking Israel, so the creating word is pressed into the work of rescue and renewal in history","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 65:17","strongs":"H1254"}]},{"point":"it reaches even to what God brings about in judgment, naming him as the one who creates calamity and darkness, not only light and good","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 45:7","strongs":"H1254"}]}],"other":[{"point":"the New Testament stretches the verb to a second creation: God making a person new in Christ, so that becoming a believer is itself an act of creation, not self-improvement","examples":[{"ref":"Ephesians 2:10","strongs":"G2936"}]},{"point":"in this new-creation use it can describe God forming a new people out of former enemies, fusing two hostile groups into one new humanity","examples":[{"ref":"Ephesians 2:15","strongs":"G2936"}]}],"shared":[{"point":"both are reserved for God as the one who creates, and the Greek word is the very verb the Bible reaches for to render the Hebrew one, naming the original making of the world and everything in it","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Revelation 4:11","strongs":"G2936"}]},{"point":"both name bringing something genuinely new into being and never mention the raw material worked from, so each points to God originating rather than assembling","examples":[{"ref":"Isaiah 40:26","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Colossians 1:16","strongs":"G2936"}]}],"generation":{"model":"claude-opus-4-8","generatedAt":"2026-06-08T17:45:09.961Z","promptVersion":"synonym-pair-v1","reviewStatus":"ai-generated","reviewedBy":null,"version":1}}},{"lemma":"ποιέω","language":"greek","strongs":"G4160","gloss":"to do/make: do","distinction":"to make or do, the broad Greek verb; wider than \"create.\""},{"lemma":"עבד","language":"aramaic","strongs":"H5648","gloss":"to make","distinction":"the Aramaic verb for making or doing; Biblical Aramaic has no separate word for \"create.\""}],"variants":[],"cognates":[]},"occurrenceData":{"totalOccurrences":55,"allOccurrencesCovered":true,"factual":{"formCount":19,"forms":[{"parseKey":"qal|perfect|3|m|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"perfect","person":3,"gender":"m","number":"s"},"label":"qal perfect 3ms","total":12,"variants":[{"surface":"ברא","count":12}]},{"parseKey":"qal|participle|m|s|absolute","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"participle","gender":"m","number":"s","state":"absolute"},"label":"qal participle m s absolute","total":10,"variants":[{"surface":"בורא","count":7},{"surface":"ובורא","count":2},{"surface":"ברא","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"qal|perfect|1|c|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"perfect","person":1,"gender":"c","number":"s"},"label":"qal perfect 1cs","total":6,"variants":[{"surface":"בראתי","count":6}]},{"parseKey":"niphal|infinitive-construct|construct","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"niphal","conjugation":"infinitive-construct","state":"construct"},"label":"niphal infinitive-construct construct","total":4,"variants":[{"surface":"הברא","count":4}]},{"parseKey":"niphal|perfect|3|c|p","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"niphal","conjugation":"perfect","person":3,"gender":"c","number":"p"},"label":"niphal perfect 3cp","total":3,"variants":[{"surface":"נבראו","count":3}]},{"parseKey":"qal|participle|m|s|construct","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"participle","gender":"m","number":"s","state":"construct"},"label":"qal participle m s construct","total":3,"variants":[{"surface":"בורא","count":1},{"surface":"בוראי","count":1},{"surface":"ברא","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"piel|consecutive-perfect|2|m|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"piel","conjugation":"consecutive-perfect","person":2,"gender":"m","number":"s"},"label":"piel consecutive-perfect 2ms","total":2,"variants":[{"surface":"ובראת","count":2}]},{"parseKey":"piel|imperative|2|m|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"piel","conjugation":"imperative","person":2,"gender":"m","number":"s"},"label":"piel imperative 2ms","total":2,"variants":[{"surface":"ברא","count":2}]},{"parseKey":"qal|consecutive-imperfect|3|m|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"consecutive-imperfect","person":3,"gender":"m","number":"s"},"label":"qal consecutive-imperfect 3ms","total":2,"variants":[{"surface":"ויברא","count":2}]},{"parseKey":"qal|perfect|2|m|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"perfect","person":2,"gender":"m","number":"s"},"label":"qal perfect 2ms","total":2,"variants":[{"surface":"בראת","count":2}]},{"parseKey":"hiphil|infinitive-construct|construct","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"hiphil","conjugation":"infinitive-construct","state":"construct"},"label":"hiphil infinitive-construct construct","total":1,"variants":[{"surface":"הבריא","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"niphal|imperfect|3|m|p","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"niphal","conjugation":"imperfect","person":3,"gender":"m","number":"p"},"label":"niphal imperfect 3mp","total":1,"variants":[{"surface":"יבראו","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"niphal|participle|m|s|absolute","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"niphal","conjugation":"participle","gender":"m","number":"s","state":"absolute"},"label":"niphal participle m s absolute","total":1,"variants":[{"surface":"נברא","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"niphal|perfect|2|f|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"niphal","conjugation":"perfect","person":2,"gender":"f","number":"s"},"label":"niphal perfect 2fs","total":1,"variants":[{"surface":"נבראת","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"piel|infinitive-construct|construct","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"piel","conjugation":"infinitive-construct","state":"construct"},"label":"piel infinitive-construct construct","total":1,"variants":[{"surface":"ברא","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"qal|consecutive-perfect|3|m|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"consecutive-perfect","person":3,"gender":"m","number":"s"},"label":"qal consecutive-perfect 3ms","total":1,"variants":[{"surface":"וברא","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"qal|imperative|2|m|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"imperative","person":2,"gender":"m","number":"s"},"label":"qal imperative 2ms","total":1,"variants":[{"surface":"ברא","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"qal|imperfect|3|m|s","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"imperfect","person":3,"gender":"m","number":"s"},"label":"qal imperfect 3ms","total":1,"variants":[{"surface":"יברא","count":1}]},{"parseKey":"qal|infinitive-construct|construct","parse":{"pos":"verb","stem":"qal","conjugation":"infinitive-construct","state":"construct"},"label":"qal infinitive-construct construct","total":1,"variants":[{"surface":"ברא","count":1}]}]}},"scholarship":{"summary":"In the standard critical lexicons (HALOT, BDB, DCH) and the major theological dictionaries (TDOT, NIDOTTE), the established meaning of this verb is \"to create.\" Two features are widely agreed: in its main use only God is ever the subject, and it never names the material God works with, which made it Israel's distinctive term for divine creation, sharpened during and after the exile. Most scholars hold that the word by itself does not assert creation out of nothing; that doctrine is drawn from the wider Bible and from later Jewish and Christian reflection (so Heidel, Westermann, Sarna, and Schmidt; on the doctrine's later development, May and Levenson). Two minority proposals reread the core sense: John Walton argues it means giving things a function in an ordered world, and Ellen van Wolde (2009) argued it means \"to separate.\" Van Wolde's proposal was criticized by Becking and Korpel and has not displaced the consensus (Wardlaw). The grammar of Genesis 1:1 is itself debated, between an absolute reading (\"In the beginning God created\") and a dependent one (\"When God began to create\"). The lexicons treat the \"cut down or clear\" and \"grow fat\" uses as separate words that merely share the spelling.","sources":[{"citation":"HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. ברא","type":"lexicon"},{"citation":"BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. ברא","type":"lexicon"},{"citation":"DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. ברא","type":"lexicon"},{"citation":"Werner H. Schmidt, \"ברא,\" in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 2:242-249","type":"dictionary"},{"citation":"Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, \"ברא,\" in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE) 1:728-735","type":"dictionary"},{"citation":"Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary (1984)","type":"commentary"},{"citation":"Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (1989)","type":"commentary"},{"citation":"Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, OTL, rev. ed. (1972)","type":"commentary"},{"citation":"Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 2nd ed. (1951)","type":"monograph"},{"citation":"Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo (1994)","type":"monograph"},{"citation":"Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil (1988)","type":"monograph"},{"citation":"John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (2011)","type":"monograph"},{"citation":"Ellen van Wolde, \"Why the Verb ברא Does Not Mean to Create in Genesis 1.1-2.4a,\" JSOT 34 (2009)","type":"article"},{"citation":"Bob Becking and Marjo C. A. Korpel, \"To Create, to Separate or to Construct,\" Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 10 (2010)","type":"article"},{"citation":"Robert D. Holmstedt, \"The Restrictive Syntax of Genesis i 1,\" Vetus Testamentum 58 (2008)","type":"article"},{"citation":"Terrance R. Wardlaw Jr., \"The Meaning of ברא in Genesis 1:1-2:3,\" Vetus Testamentum 64 (2014)","type":"article"},{"citation":"Yitzhaq Feder, \"The Meaning of ברא (Ezek 21:24) and the Prophecy Concerning Nebuchadnezzar at the Crossroads,\" ZAW 128 (2016)","type":"article"}]},"generation":{"model":"claude-opus-4-8","generatedAt":"2026-06-08T09:53:04.289Z","promptVersion":"generate-lemma-v1","reviewStatus":"ai-generated","reviewedBy":null,"version":8,"researchMode":true},"englishGlosses":[{"gloss":"create","comparison":{"self":[{"point":"the Hebrew reserves this verb to God alone and never names the material worked from, so it quietly insists the act is uniquely God's; English \"create\" carries no such restriction.","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Genesis 1:27","strongs":"H1254"}]}],"other":[{"point":"English \"create\" is used freely of human invention, art, and design, and to a modern ear it can also imply making something out of nothing; the Hebrew makes neither claim by itself, so the English word can smuggle in both human creativity and a doctrine of creation from nothing the word does not state."}],"shared":[{"point":"both words name the bringing about of something genuinely new.","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 1:1","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Jeremiah 31:22","strongs":"H1254"}]}]}},{"gloss":"make","comparison":{"self":[{"point":"this verb is the special word for God's creating: it is reserved to God and leaves the material unnamed, where English \"make\" is the broad everyday word anyone uses for producing or assembling something from what is at hand.","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 6:7","strongs":"H1254"},{"ref":"Malachi 2:10","strongs":"H1254"}]}],"other":[],"shared":[{"point":"both can describe God bringing human beings into existence.","examples":[{"ref":"Genesis 5:2","strongs":"H1254"}]}]}}],"disputes":[{"issue":"Whether the words spelled b-r-' are one root or several unrelated words that happen to share the spelling (create / cut down / grow fat).","positions":[{"view":"They are separate words: \"create,\" \"cut down or clear,\" and \"grow fat\" are unrelated and only look alike.","heldBy":[{"citation":"HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. ברא","type":"lexicon"},{"citation":"K.-H. Bernhardt, \"ברא,\" in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (TLOT) 1:253-256","type":"dictionary"}],"status":"majority"},{"view":"They go back to one root whose underlying idea is cutting, separating, or shaping, from which \"create\" developed.","heldBy":[{"citation":"Werner H. Schmidt, \"ברא,\" in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 2:242-249","type":"dictionary"},{"citation":"Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, \"ברא,\" in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE) 1:728-735","type":"dictionary"}],"status":"minority"}]}],"research":{"papers":[{"strongs":"H1254","title":"What בָּרָא really means: a tour of scholarly debate","format":"markdown","url":"/v1/research/H1254.md","sourcePath":"data/research/H1254.md"}]}}