בָּרָא
ba.ra
to create
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# The Hebrew Word for Creating: *Bara* The Hebrew verb *bara* appears 53 times throughout the Bible with the fundamental meaning "to create." This is a specialized term in biblical vocabulary, distinct from other words for making or forming. Its relatively limited occurrence—spread across both the Hebrew Bible's narrative and poetic sections—suggests it carries particular weight when used, reserved for specific contexts rather than serving as a general term for ordinary production or manufacture. The lexical data alone indicates that *bara* denotes a distinct action that the biblical authors considered significant enough to preserve as a separate word. However, without additional contextual information such as specific passages, grammatical patterns, or objects that typically receive this verb, the precise boundaries of its usage and the theological or practical distinctions between *bara* and related terms for making or forming cannot be determined from the definition provided. The 53 occurrences represent a meaningful but selective presence in biblical literature, indicating the concept of creation held particular importance for the biblical writers, though the exact nature of that significance would require examination of actual usage examples.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
53 total occurrences across the text — showing 50
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
Psalms 89:12You have created the north and the south. Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your name.
Psalms 89:47Remember how short my time is, for what vanity you have created all the children of men!
Psalms 102:18This will be written for the generation to come. A people which will be created will praise Yah.
Psalms 104:30You send out your Spirit and they are created. You renew the face of the ground.
Psalms 148:5Let them praise Yahweh’s name, for he commanded, and they were created.
Ecclesiastes 12:1Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near, when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them;”
Isaiah 4:5Yahweh will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night, for over all the glory will be a canopy.
Isaiah 45:8Rain, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, that it may produce salvation, and let it cause righteousness to spring up with it. I, Yahweh, have created it.
Isaiah 40:26Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their army by number. He calls them all by name. by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is lacking.
Isaiah 40:28Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
Isaiah 41:20that they may see, know, consider, and understand together, that Yahweh’s hand has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
Isaiah 42:5God Yahweh, he who created the heavens and stretched them out, he who spread out the earth and that which comes out of it, he who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk in it, says:
Isaiah 43:1But now Yahweh who created you, Jacob, and he who formed you, Israel, says: “Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine.
Isaiah 43:7everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made.’ ”
Isaiah 43:15I am Yahweh, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.”
Isaiah 45:12I have made the earth, and created man on it. I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens. I have commanded all their army.
Isaiah 45:18For Yahweh who created the heavens, the God who formed the earth and made it, who established it and didn’t create it a waste, who formed it to be inhabited says: “I am Yahweh. There is no other.
Isaiah 45:18For Yahweh who created the heavens, the God who formed the earth and made it, who established it and didn’t create it a waste, who formed it to be inhabited says: “I am Yahweh. There is no other.
Isaiah 48:7They are created now, and not from of old. Before today, you didn’t hear them, lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’
Isaiah 54:16“Behold, I have created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame, and forges a weapon for his work; and I have created the destroyer to destroy.
Isaiah 54:16“Behold, I have created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame, and forges a weapon for his work; and I have created the destroyer to destroy.
Isaiah 57:19I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him who is near,” says Yahweh; “and I will heal them.”
Isaiah 65:17“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Isaiah 65:18But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem to be a delight, and her people a joy.
Isaiah 65:18But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem to be a delight, and her people a joy.
Jeremiah 31:22How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a man.”
Ezekiel 21:19“Also, you son of man, appoint two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come. They both will come out of one land, and mark out a place. Mark it out at the head of the way to the city.
Ezekiel 21:30Cause it to return into its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your birth, I will judge you.
Ezekiel 23:47The company will stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords. They will kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.
Ezekiel 28:13You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz, emerald, chrysolite, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and beryl. Gold work of tambourines and of pipes was in you. They were prepared in the day that you were created.
Ezekiel 28:15You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, until unrighteousness was found in you.
Amos 4:13For, behold, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth: Yahweh, the God of Armies, is his name.”
Malachi 2:10Don’t we all have one father? Hasn’t one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Isaiah 45:7I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.
Isaiah 45:7I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.
Ezekiel 21:19“Also, you son of man, appoint two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come. They both will come out of one land, and mark out a place. Mark it out at the head of the way to the city.
Genesis 1:1In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:21God created the large sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:27God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 2:3God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because he rested in it from all his work of creation which he had done.
Genesis 2:4This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens.
Genesis 5:1This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in God’s likeness.
Genesis 5:2He created them male and female, and blessed them. On the day they were created, he named them Adam.
Genesis 5:2He created them male and female, and blessed them. On the day they were created, he named them Adam.
Genesis 6:7Yahweh said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground—man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky—for I am sorry that I have made them.”
Exodus 34:10He said, “Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been worked in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of Yahweh; for it is an awesome thing that I do with you.
Numbers 16:30But if Yahweh makes a new thing, and the ground opens its mouth, and swallows them up with all that belong to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall understand that these men have despised Yahweh.”