shamad · destroy

What it means

shamad (שָׁמַד) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “destroy”.

Completely, exterminate.

How to say it

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 wipe something or someone out completely.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

To destroy completely, exterminate; in the passive, to be destroyed. BDB: to desolate, destroy utterly.

• YHWH destroys the nations before Israel Deuteronomy 7:23Deuteronomy 9:14
• The threat against Israel: “he destroy you from the face of the ground” Deuteronomy 6:15Deuteronomy 4:26
• “I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob” Amos 9:8
• Plans to exterminate a people Esther 3:62 Samuel 21:5

How we translate it

“Destroy” 42 times, “destroyed” 40; once each “I will exterminate you”, “will be exterminated” and “wiped out”. This edition renders הִשְׁמִיד “destroy”, distinct from הִכְרִית “cut off”: “you will not cut off my offspring… and that you will not destroy my name” (1 Samuel 24:21).

How it is translated

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

• destroy ×42
• destroyed ×40
• point of destroying ×2
• I will exterminate you ×1
• destruction ×1
• he had wiped him out ×1
• utterly ×1
• will be exterminated ×1
• wiped out ×1

Related words

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

Where it appears

• Genesis×1
• Leviticus×1
• Numbers×1
• Deuteronomy×29
• Joshua×6
• Judges×1
• 1 Samuel×1
• 2 Samuel×5
• 1 Kings×3
• 2 Kings×3
• 1 Chronicles×1
• 2 Chronicles×3
• Esther×5
• Psalms×6
• Proverbs×1
• Isaiah×6
• Jeremiah×2
• Lamentations×1
• Ezekiel×4
• Daniel×1
• Hosea×1
• Amos×5
• Micah×1
• Haggai×1
• Zechariah×1

• Genesis 34:30

  Jacob said to Simeon and to Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. And I have few men; if they gather against me and strike me, I will be destroyed, I and my house.”

• Leviticus 26:30

  And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and put your corpses on the corpses of your idols, and my soul will loathe you.

• Numbers 33:52

  you shall dispossess all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and do away with all their carved stones, and all their molten images you shall do away with, and all their high places you shall destroy.

• Deuteronomy 1:27

  You grumbled in your tents and said, “Because of YHWH’s hatred for us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorite, to destroy us.

• Deuteronomy 2:12

  In Seir the Horites lived formerly, but the sons of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and lived in their place, just as Israel did to the land of its possession, which YHWH gave them.)

• Deuteronomy 2:21

  a people great, numerous, and tall like the Anakim. But YHWH destroyed them from before them, and they dispossessed them and lived in their place,

• Deuteronomy 2:22

  just as he did for the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horite from before them; they dispossessed them and have lived in their place to this day.

• Deuteronomy 2:23

  As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came out of Caphtor, destroyed them and lived in their place.)

• Deuteronomy 4:3

  Your eyes are the ones that saw what YHWH did at Baal-peor: for every man who went after Baal-peor, YHWH your Elohim destroyed him from your midst.

• Deuteronomy 4:26

  I call the heavens and the earth to witness against you today that you will surely perish quickly from the land to which you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of it. You will not prolong your days on it, but you will surely be destroyed.

• Deuteronomy 6:15

  for a jealous El is YHWH your Elohim in your midst, lest the anger of YHWH your Elohim be kindled against you and he destroy you from the face of the ground.

• Deuteronomy 7:4

  for he will turn away your son from following me, and they will serve other gods; and the anger of YHWH will be kindled against you, and he will destroy you quickly.

• Deuteronomy 7:23

  But YHWH your Elohim will deliver them before you and throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed.

• Deuteronomy 7:24

  He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will make their name perish from under the heavens; no man will stand before you until you have destroyed them.

• Deuteronomy 9:3

  Know today that YHWH your Elohim, he is the one who crosses over before you as a consuming fire; he will destroy them, and he will subdue them before you; and you will dispossess them and make them perish quickly, as YHWH has spoken to you.

• Deuteronomy 9:8

  At Horeb you made YHWH angry, and YHWH was incensed with you to the point of destroying you.

• Deuteronomy 9:14

  Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens; and I will make you into a nation mightier and more numerous than they.”

• Deuteronomy 9:19

  For I was afraid of the anger and the fury with which YHWH was angry with you, to destroy you. But YHWH listened to me that time also.

• Deuteronomy 9:20

  And with Aaron YHWH was greatly incensed, to the point of destroying him; and I prayed also for Aaron at that time.

• Deuteronomy 9:25

  So I lay prostrate before YHWH the forty days and the forty nights that I lay prostrate, because YHWH had said he would destroy you.

• Deuteronomy 12:30

  guard yourself so that you are not snared into following them after they have been destroyed before you, and so that you do not seek their gods, saying, “How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.”

• Deuteronomy 28:20

  YHWH will send on you the curse, the confusion, and the rebuke in all that you undertake with your hand that you do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me.

• Deuteronomy 28:24

  YHWH will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from the heavens it will come down on you until you are destroyed.

• Deuteronomy 28:45

  And all these curses will come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of YHWH your Elohim, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you.

• Deuteronomy 28:48

  you will serve your enemies, whom YHWH will send against you, in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in lack of everything; and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.

• Deuteronomy 28:51

  And it will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed; it will not leave you grain, new wine, or oil, the offspring of your herds or the young of your flock, until it has made you perish.

• Deuteronomy 28:61

  Also every sickness and every blow that is not written in the book of this instruction, YHWH will bring them up on you until you are destroyed.

• Deuteronomy 28:63

  And it shall be that as YHWH rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so YHWH will rejoice over you to make you perish and to destroy you; and you will be torn from off the land that you are entering there to possess it.

• Deuteronomy 31:3

  YHWH your Elohim, he is crossing over before you; he will destroy these nations from before you, and you will dispossess them. Joshua, he is crossing over before you, as YHWH has spoken.

• Deuteronomy 31:4

  And YHWH will do to them as he did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, whom he destroyed.

• Deuteronomy 33:27

  A dwelling place is the Elohim of old, and underneath are the eternal arms. And he drove out the enemy from before you and said, ‘Destroy!’

• Joshua 7:12

  So the sons of Israel cannot stand before their enemies; they turn their back before their enemies, for they have become a thing devoted to destruction. I will not be with you any more unless you destroy the things devoted to destruction from among you.

• Joshua 9:24

  They answered Joshua and said, “Because it was certainly told to your servants that YHWH your Elohim had commanded Moses his servant to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you; so we feared greatly for our lives because of you, and we did this thing.

• Joshua 11:14

  And all the spoil of these cities and the livestock the sons of Israel plundered for themselves; only all the human beings they struck with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them; they did not leave anything that breathed.

• Joshua 11:20

  For it was from YHWH to make their heart obstinate to meet Israel in battle, in order that he might devote them to destruction, so that there would be no favor for them, but in order that he might destroy them, just as YHWH had commanded Moses.

• Joshua 23:15

  And it shall be that just as all the good word that YHWH your Elohim spoke to you has come upon you, so YHWH will bring upon you all the evil word, until he has destroyed you from off this good land that YHWH your Elohim has given you.

• Joshua 24:8

  And I brought you to the land of the Amorite who lived beyond the Jordan; and they fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you.

• Judges 21:16

  Then the elders of the community said, “What shall we do for those who are left, for wives, since the women from Benjamin have been destroyed?”

• 1 Samuel 24:21

  Now swear to me by YHWH that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and that you will not destroy my name from the house of my father.”

• 2 Samuel 14:7

  And look, the whole family has risen against your servant, and they have said, ‘Hand over the one who struck his brother, so that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed, and we will destroy the heir too.’ So they will quench my coal that is left, so as not to leave to my husband name or remnant on the face of the ground.”

And 50 more times.