shama · horror, desolation

What it means

shama (שַׁמָּה) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “horror, desolation”.

Horror: ruin that leaves those who see it appalled.

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. Something that horrifies everyone.
2. A destroyed land or city.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

How it is translated

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

• horror ×31
• desolation ×7
• desolations ×1
• was left desolate ×1

Related words

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

Where it appears

• Deuteronomy×1
• 2 Kings×1
• 2 Chronicles×2
• Psalms×2
• Isaiah×3
• Jeremiah×24
• Ezekiel×1
• Hosea×1
• Joel×1
• Micah×1
• Zephaniah×1
• Zechariah×2

• Deuteronomy 28:37

  And you will become a horror, a byword, and a taunt among all the peoples where YHWH will drive you.

• 2 Kings 22:19

  because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before YHWH when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard, declares YHWH.

• 2 Chronicles 29:8

  So the wrath of YHWH was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he gave them over to terror, to horror, and to hissing, as you see with your eyes.

• 2 Chronicles 30:7

  Do not be like your fathers and like your brothers, who were unfaithful to YHWH, the Elohim of their fathers, so that he gave them over to horror, as you see.

• Psalms 46:8

  Come, gaze on the works of YHWH, who has set desolations in the earth.

• Psalms 73:19

  How they have become a desolation in a moment! They have come to an end, they have been consumed by horrors.

• Isaiah 5:9

  In my ears said YHWH Tsevaot: Surely many houses will become a desolation, great and fine, without inhabitant.

• Isaiah 13:9

  Look, the day of YHWH is coming, cruel, and wrath and burning anger, to make the earth a desolation, and its sinners he will destroy from it.

• Isaiah 24:12

  Desolation is left in the city, and with a crash the gate is battered.

• Jeremiah 2:15

  Against him young lions roar, they have raised their voice, and they have made his land a horror; his cities are burned, without inhabitant.

• Jeremiah 4:7

  A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out; he has gone out from his place to make your land a horror; your cities will be laid waste, without inhabitant.

• Jeremiah 5:30

  A horror and a horrible thing has happened in the land:

• Jeremiah 8:21

  For the breaking of the daughter of my people I am broken; I go about in mourning; horror has seized me.

• Jeremiah 18:16

  to make their land a horror, a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and shake his head.

• Jeremiah 19:8

  And I will make this city a horror and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss over all its wounds.

• Jeremiah 25:9

  look, I am sending and will take all the clans of the north, declares YHWH, and I am sending to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around; and I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror and a hissing and eternal ruins.

• Jeremiah 25:11

  And this whole land will become a ruin and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

• Jeremiah 25:18

  Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, and its kings, its princes, to make them a ruin, a horror, a hissing and a curse, as it is this day;

• Jeremiah 25:38

  Like a young lion he has left his lair; for their land has become a horror before the burning of the oppressor, and before his burning anger.

• Jeremiah 29:18

  And I will pursue them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and I will make them a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth, a curse and a horror and a hissing and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them,

• Jeremiah 42:18

  For thus says YHWH Tsevaot, the Elohim of Israel: As my anger and my fury were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my fury will be poured out on you when you go to Egypt, and you will become an imprecation and a horror and a curse and a reproach, and you will not see this place again.

• Jeremiah 44:12

  And I will take the remnant of Judah who have set their faces to go to the land of Egypt to reside as aliens there, and they will all come to an end; in the land of Egypt they will fall; by the sword and by famine they will come to an end; from the small to the great, by the sword and by famine they will die; and they will become an imprecation, a horror, and a curse and a reproach.

• Jeremiah 44:22

  And YHWH could no longer bear it because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations that you committed; so your land has become a ruin and a horror and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day.

• Jeremiah 46:19

  Make for yourself baggage for exile, you who dwell, daughter of Egypt, for Memphis will become a horror, and will be set on fire, without inhabitant.

• Jeremiah 48:9

  Give wings to Moab, for flying she will go out; and her cities will become a horror, with no one dwelling in them.

• Jeremiah 49:13

  For by myself I have sworn, declares YHWH, that Bozrah will become a horror, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all her cities will become eternal ruins.

• Jeremiah 49:17

  And Edom will become a horror; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss over all its wounds.

• Jeremiah 50:3

  For a nation from the north has come up against her; it will make her land a horror, and there will be no inhabitant in it; from human being to livestock they have fled, they have gone.

• Jeremiah 50:23

  How it is cut down and broken, the hammer of all the earth! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations!

• Jeremiah 51:29

  And the earth quakes and writhes, for the plans of YHWH against Babylon stand, to make the land of Babylon a horror, without inhabitant.

• Jeremiah 51:37

  And Babylon will become heaps, a lair of jackals, a horror and a hissing, without inhabitant.

• Jeremiah 51:41

  How Sheshach is captured, and the praise of all the earth is seized! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations!

• Jeremiah 51:43

  Her cities have become a horror, a dry land and a steppe, a land in which no one dwells, and through which no son of man passes.

• Ezekiel 23:33

  With drunkenness and sorrow you will be filled, a cup of horror and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria.

• Hosea 5:9

  Ephraim will become a desolation on the day of rebuke; among the tribes of Israel I have made known what is sure.

• Joel 1:7

  It has made my vine a desolation, and my fig tree splinters; it has stripped it bare and thrown it down; its branches have turned white.

• Micah 6:16

  And the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the work of the house of Ahab, and you walk in their counsels, so that I may make you a horror, and her inhabitants a hissing; and the reproach of my people you will bear.”

• Zephaniah 2:15

  This is the exultant city who sat in security, who said in her heart, “I, and no one else.” How she has become a horror, a resting place for animals! Everyone who passes by her will hiss and shake his hand.

• Zechariah 7:14

  And I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known; and the land was left desolate behind them, with no one passing through or returning; and they made the pleasant land a horror.

And 1 more times.