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בָּקַע

baka · split, break open

Hebrew word · Strong’s number H1234 · appears 51 times in the Bible

What is the Strong number?Strong’s number identifies this word: use it to find the same word in other study tools.

What it means

baka (בָּקַע) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “split, break open”.

Split, cleave, break open; tear apart. Said of splitting wood, dividing the sea, springs bursting out, and cities being breached.

How to say it

ba·ka

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

  1. To cleave something in two, like wood or the sea.
  2. To break into a city.
  3. To rip a body or a thing violently to pieces.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

To split, to cleave, to open something by force: wood, the sea, the earth, a wall. The text also uses it of adders’ eggs that are hatched (Isaiah 59:5) and of water that bursts out in the wilderness (Isaiah 35:6). From the same root are בִּקְעָה, ‘plain’ or valley (an open land between mountains), and בֶּקַע, beka, half a shekel.

How we translate it

Each use asks for its verb: “split” (13 times, “He split” 4; “split open”, Judges 15:19); in sieges, “was breached” (3) or “broke through” (2); of animals, “tore apart”; “divided” for the sea in Nehemiah 9:11. In 2 Kings 8:12 and 15:16 the verb is rendered “rip open”, without softening what the text recounts.

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

  • split ×13
  • He split ×4
  • ripped open ×3
  • was breached ×3
  • breached ×2
  • breaks open ×2
  • broke through ×2
  • tore ×2
  • I will make burst ×1
  • They hatch ×1
  • others ×18

Related words

Words that come from it

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

  • Genesis 7:11

    In the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the springs of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

  • Genesis 22:3

    Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and he rose and went to the place that Elohim had told him.

  • Exodus 14:16

    And you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and split it, so that the sons of Israel may go into the midst of the sea on dry ground.

  • Exodus 14:21

    Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and YHWH drove back the sea by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were split.

  • Numbers 16:31

    And it happened, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground that was under them split open.

  • Joshua 9:4

    and they too acted with cunning: they went and posed as envoys, and took worn-out sacks for their donkeys, and wineskins worn-out, torn, and mended,

  • Joshua 9:13

    And these wineskins that we filled new, look, they have split; and these cloaks of ours and our sandals have worn out from the very great length of the journey.”

  • Judges 15:19

    And Elohim split open the hollow that is in Lehi, and water came out of it, and he drank, and his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he called its name En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.

  • 1 Samuel 6:14

    And the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there. And there was a great stone. And they split the wood of the cart and offered up the cows as a burnt offering to YHWH.

  • 2 Samuel 23:16

    The three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate, and they carried it and brought it to David; but he was not willing to drink it, and he poured it out as a libation to YHWH.

  • 1 Kings 1:40

    And all the people went up after him, and the people were playing on flutes and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth split with their sound.

  • 2 Kings 2:24

    He turned behind him and saw them and cursed them in the name of YHWH. And two she-bears came out of the forest and tore apart forty two children of them.

  • 2 Kings 3:26

    The king of Moab saw that the battle was too strong for him, and he took with him seven hundred men who drew the sword to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not.

  • 2 Kings 8:12

    Hazael said, “Why is my lord weeping?” He said, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the sons of Israel: their fortresses you will set on fire, their young men you will kill with the sword, their little ones you will dash to pieces, and their pregnant women you will rip open.”

  • 2 Kings 15:16

    Then Menahem struck Tiphsah and all who were in it and its territories from Tirzah, because they did not open to him; and he struck it; all its pregnant women he ripped open.

  • 2 Kings 25:4

    The city was breached, and all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls that is by the garden of the king, while the Chaldeans were against the city all around; and he went by way of the Arabah.

  • 1 Chronicles 11:18

    The three broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate, and they carried it and brought it to David; but David was not willing to drink it, and he poured it out as a libation to YHWH.

  • 2 Chronicles 21:17

    They came up against Judah, broke into it, and carried away captive all the goods that were found in the house of the king, and also his sons and his wives; and there was not left to him a son except Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons.

  • 2 Chronicles 25:12

    The sons of Judah also took captive ten thousand alive, and brought them to the top of the rock and threw them down from the top of the rock, and all of them were dashed to pieces.

  • 2 Chronicles 32:1

    After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and entered Judah and encamped against the fortified cities and intended to break into them for himself.

  • Nehemiah 9:11

    And the sea you divided before them, and they passed through the midst of the sea on dry ground; and their pursuers you threw into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters.

  • Job 26:8

    He binds up the waters in his clouds, and the cloud is not split beneath them.

  • Job 28:10

    In the rocks he cuts channels, and every precious thing his eye sees.

  • Job 32:19

    Look, my belly is like wine that is not opened; like new wineskins it is bursting.

  • Psalms 74:15

    You opened spring and brook; you dried up constant rivers.

  • Psalms 78:13

    He split the sea and brought them through, and made the waters stand like a heap.

  • Psalms 78:15

    He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as from the deeps, abundantly.

  • Psalms 141:7

    As one who plows and breaks open the earth, our bones have been scattered at the mouth of Sheol.

  • Proverbs 3:20

    By his knowledge the deeps were split open, and the clouds drip dew.

  • Ecclesiastes 10:9

    Whoever moves stones will be hurt by them; whoever splits logs will be endangered by them.

  • Isaiah 7:6

    “Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and break into it for ourselves, and set up a king in its midst, the son of Tabeel,”

  • Isaiah 34:15

    There the snake will nest and lay eggs and hatch them and gather them in its shadow; yes, there the harriers will gather, each one with its mate.

  • Isaiah 35:6

    Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy; for waters will break out in the wilderness, and torrents in the Arabah.

  • Isaiah 48:21

    And they did not thirst when he led them through the desolate places; water from the rock he made flow for them; and he split the rock, and the water flowed.

  • Isaiah 58:8

    Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will sprout quickly; and your righteousness will go before you; the glory of YHWH will gather you.

  • Isaiah 59:5

    They hatch cobra eggs, and they weave spider webs; whoever eats of their eggs dies, and the crushed egg breaks open into a viper.

  • Isaiah 63:12

    who made it go at the right hand of Moses, the arm of his beauty; who split the waters before them to make for himself an eternal name;

  • Jeremiah 39:2

    In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth of the month, the city was breached.

  • Jeremiah 52:7

    The city was breached, and all the men of war fled and went out of the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls that is by the garden of the king, while the Chaldeans were against the city all around; and they went by way of the Arabah.

  • Ezekiel 13:11

    say to those who plaster it with whitewash that it will fall. There will be a torrential rain, and you, hailstones, will fall, and a wind of storms will burst it open.

And 11 more times.