שָׁמַד
sha.mad
to destroy
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# Analysis of Hebrew שׁמַד (shamad) The Hebrew verb *shamad* carries the primary meaning "to destroy," appearing 90 times throughout the biblical text. This frequency indicates it represents a concept of considerable importance in biblical discourse, suggesting that destruction—whether physical, social, or institutional—occupied a significant place in ancient Hebrew thought and narrative. The term's prevalence across 90 occurrences suggests it functioned as a standard vocabulary item for describing various forms of destruction rather than serving as a specialized or rare expression. This broad usage pattern indicates the word could apply to multiple contexts: the destruction of objects, peoples, cities, or abstract entities like hope or covenant relationships. The consistency of its appearance throughout the biblical corpus suggests that concepts of destruction and elimination were recurring themes in biblical writing. Without access to detailed contextual examples from the provided data, the full range of *shamad*'s applications remains limited to what the basic definition conveys. The word fundamentally denotes an act of bringing something to an end through destructive means, making it a foundational term in biblical vocabulary for expressing ruin, annihilation, or elimination across diverse narrative and theological contexts.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
90 total occurrences across the text — showing 50
Now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned away from them, and didn’t destroy them;
2 Chronicles 20:23For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir to utterly kill and destroy them. When they had finished the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped to destroy each other.
2 Chronicles 33:9Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did more evil than did the nations whom Yahweh destroyed before the children of Israel.
Esther 3:6But he scorned the thought of laying hands on Mordecai alone, for they had made known to him Mordecai’s people. Therefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even Mordecai’s people.
Esther 3:13Letters were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to plunder their possessions.
Esther 4:8He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Susa to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to urge her to go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him, for her people.
Esther 7:4For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for male and female slaves, I would have held my peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king’s loss.”
Esther 8:11In those letters, the king granted the Jews who were in every city to gather themselves together, and to defend their life, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, their little ones and women, and to plunder their possessions,
Psalms 37:38As for transgressors, they shall be destroyed together. The future of the wicked shall be cut off.
Psalms 83:10who perished at Endor, who became as dung for the earth.
Psalms 92:7though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.
Psalms 106:23Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had Moses, his chosen, not stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, so that he wouldn’t destroy them.
Psalms 106:34They didn’t destroy the peoples, as Yahweh commanded them,
Psalms 145:20Yahweh preserves all those who love him, but he will destroy all the wicked.
Proverbs 14:11The house of the wicked will be overthrown, but the tent of the upright will flourish.
Isaiah 10:7However he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.
Isaiah 13:9Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners out of it.
Isaiah 14:23“I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water. I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” says Yahweh of Armies.
Isaiah 23:11He has stretched out his hand over the sea. He has shaken the kingdoms. Yahweh has ordered the destruction of Canaan’s strongholds.
Isaiah 26:14The dead shall not live. The departed spirits shall not rise. Therefore you have visited and destroyed them, and caused all memory of them to perish.
Isaiah 48:19Your offspring also would have been as the sand and the descendants of your body like its grains. His name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me.”
Jeremiah 48:8The destroyer will come on every city, and no city will escape; the valley also will perish, and the plain will be destroyed; as Yahweh has spoken.
Jeremiah 48:42Moab will be destroyed from being a people, because he has magnified himself against Yahweh.
Lamentations 3:66You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh.
Ezekiel 14:9“ ‘ “If the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, Yahweh, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand on him, and will destroy him from among my people Israel.
Ezekiel 25:7therefore, behold, I have stretched out my hand on you, and will deliver you for a plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples, and I will cause you to perish out of the countries. I will destroy you. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.”
Ezekiel 32:12I will cause your multitude to fall by the swords of the mighty. They are all the ruthless of the nations. They will bring the pride of Egypt to nothing, and all its multitude will be destroyed.
Ezekiel 34:16“I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them in justice.” ’
Daniel 11:44But news out of the east and out of the north will trouble him; and he will go out with great fury to destroy and utterly to sweep away many.
Hosea 10:8The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars. They will tell the mountains, “Cover us!” and the hills, “Fall on us!”
Amos 2:9Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.
Amos 2:9Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.
Amos 9:8Behold, the eyes of the Lord Yahweh are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the surface of the earth; except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” says Yahweh.
Amos 9:8Behold, the eyes of the Lord Yahweh are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the surface of the earth; except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” says Yahweh.
Amos 9:8Behold, the eyes of the Lord Yahweh are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the surface of the earth; except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” says Yahweh.
Micah 5:14I will uproot your Asherah poles out from among you; and I will destroy your cities.
Haggai 2:22I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations. I will overthrow the chariots, and those who ride in them. The horses and their riders will come down, everyone by the sword of his brother.
Zechariah 12:9It will happen in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
Genesis 34:30Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number. They will gather themselves together against me and strike me, and I will be destroyed, I and my house.”
Leviticus 26:30I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.
Numbers 33:52then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their stone idols, destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places.
Deuteronomy 1:27You murmured in your tents, and said, “Because Yahweh hated us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.
Deuteronomy 2:12The Horites also lived in Seir in the past, but the children of Esau succeeded them. They destroyed them from before them, and lived in their place, as Israel did to the land of his possession, which Yahweh gave to them.)
Deuteronomy 2:21a great people, many, and tall, as the Anakim; but Yahweh destroyed them from before Israel, and they succeeded them, and lived in their place;
Deuteronomy 2:22as he did for the children of Esau who dwell in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites from before them; and they succeeded them, and lived in their place even to this day.
Deuteronomy 2:23Then 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 4:3Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did because of Baal Peor; for Yahweh your God has destroyed all the men who followed Baal Peor from among you.
Deuteronomy 4:26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.
Deuteronomy 4:26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.
Deuteronomy 6:15for Yahweh your God among you is a jealous God, lest the anger of Yahweh your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.