יֵ֫צֶר
ye.tser
intention
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# Analysis of Hebrew Yetser (H3336) The Hebrew word *yetser* appears nine times in the biblical text and carries the primary meaning of "intention." This term refers to the mental faculty of forming plans or purposes—the inner deliberation that precedes action. The word functions as a noun denoting the abstract concept of purposeful thought rather than the thought itself in isolation. The limited number of occurrences (nine instances) suggests this was a specialized term rather than an everyday vocabulary word, making it significant in contexts where the Bible specifically addresses human deliberation and planning. The consistent translation as "intention" indicates the biblical authors used this word to describe purposeful mental activity—the stage between desire and execution where someone determines what they will do. This places *yetser* in the domain of human agency and decision-making. Without access to the specific contextual passages, the full range of how this intention-concept functions in biblical thought cannot be detailed from this data alone. However, the lexical definition establishes that *yetser* represents a deliberative mental process central to understanding how the biblical texts conceptualized human responsibility and choice.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
9 total occurrences across the text
For he knows how we are made. He remembers that we are dust.
Isaiah 26:3You will keep whoever’s mind is steadfast in perfect peace, because he trusts in you.
Isaiah 29:16You turn things upside down! Should the potter be thought to be like clay; that the thing made should say about him who made it, “He didn’t make me;” or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding?”
Habakkuk 2:18“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?
Genesis 6:5Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil.
Genesis 8:21Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.
Deuteronomy 31:21It will happen, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this song will testify before them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten out of the mouths of their descendants; for I know their ways and what they are doing today, before I have brought them into the land which I promised them.”
1 Chronicles 28:9You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.
1 Chronicles 29:18Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this desire forever in the thoughts of the heart of your people, and prepare their heart for you;