Properly, to be open , wide or free , i.e. (by implication) to be safe ; causatively, to free or succor
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through the Connect page. Screenshots are helpful.
יָשַׁע is the great saving verb of the Hebrew Bible. It is the root that gives Israel her vocabulary of rescue, her songs of deliverance, and ultimately the name of the one whom the whole canon moves toward: Yeshua.
Reader summary
Full entry for יָשַׁע (H3467) · Open the biblical lexicon
יָשַׁע is the great saving verb of the Hebrew Bible. It is the root that gives Israel her vocabulary of rescue, her songs of deliverance, and ultimately the name of the one whom the whole canon moves toward: Yeshua.
The BSB source-word alignment has 205 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include save me (13), save (12), to save (10), I will save (8), save us (8).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 2:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (57), Isaiah (29), Judges (21), Jeremiah (19).
יָשַׁע is the great saving verb of the Hebrew Bible. It is the root that gives Israel her vocabulary of rescue, her songs of deliverance, and ultimately the name of the one whom the whole canon moves toward: Yeshua. But pastors should resist reaching immediately for that etymology. The verb must first be heard on its own terms, in all the weight it carries across about 206 occurrences in the local Hebrew artifact.
At its core, יָשַׁע names the act of bringing someone out of a situation they could not escape on their own — a military enemy, a life-threatening danger, an overwhelming humiliation, the grip of death itself. BDB traces the root sense to being open, wide, or free; the causative thrust of the verb is to bring another into that wide, unencumbered space. This is not mere rescue from inconvenience. The word is used of God's arm intervening in history, of warriors delivering besieged towns, of a king's power over his enemies, and of the Lord alone saving when no human instrument remains.
The verb is used both of human deliverers and of God, but the theological pressure of the OT pushes relentlessly toward one conclusion: only God saves in the fullest and final sense. Humans may be instruments, but the arm that ultimately delivers belongs to the Lord. Isaiah makes this most sharply: 'I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior' (Isa. 43:3). The verb does not merely describe a transaction. It identifies the character and the exclusive prerogative of the God of Israel. To be saved by him is to be freed from whatever held you, placed in the wide and unencumbered space of his mercy, and known as his.
For the pastor, this word carries pastoral weight in both directions. It comforts the person who has come to the end of their own resources — there is a God who saves, who has a history of saving, whose nature is to save. And it corrects the person who imagines that salvation is a cooperative project, that God assists while the human manages the rest. יָשַׁע names an intervention, not a partnership of equals. The God of Israel is the Savior.
Exodus 14:30 — 'So the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians.' The first theologically decisive use of יָשַׁע places the verb squarely in the hands of God alone. Israel does not fight; Israel watches. The salvation at the sea becomes the paradigmatic saving act — the event the rest of the OT circles back to again and again when naming what God does.
יָשַׁע enters Scripture with force at the sea. The moment Israel stands between the Egyptian army and the water, with no human exit available, is the moment God acts. 'The Lord saved Israel that day' (Exod. 14:30). The verb does not describe a close call or a providential advantage. It describes a rescue that only God could have performed, and Israel knew it. The song that follows in Exodus 15 becomes the first great confession: this is who the Lord is, this is what he does, this is why he is to be feared and praised.
The Psalms then take this verb and give it a home in the praying life of Israel. The person in distress, the king surrounded by enemies, the soul in the shadow of death — all of them have learned to cry יָשַׁע. They cry it not because they have negotiated a theory of divine intervention but because they have inherited a story. The Lord saved at the sea. He has saved before. He will save again. This is the logic of lament prayer: memory of past salvation becomes the ground for present petition. The verb holds the history and the hope together.
Isaiah then stretches the verb to its widest range. In the Servant Songs and the great proclamations of chapters 40–55, יָשַׁע is not confined to military rescue or personal crisis. It describes God's purpose for Israel among the nations and ultimately his word to the ends of the earth: 'Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!' (45:22). This is the OT's most universal use of the verb. The saving God is not the tribal deity of one nation but the only God, and his salvation is available to all who turn. Isaiah 43:3 and 45:22 sit at the theological summit of the OT saving vocabulary.
Zechariah 9:9 then focuses the verb onto a coming figure — a king who is righteous and who has salvation, who comes humbly. The verb has moved from event to character, from what God does to who God sends. This is the trajectory that the NT picks up when Matthew names the child Jesus: 'He will save his people from their sins' (Matt. 1:21). The verb that drove 205 Hebrew OT uses, the verb beneath the name Yeshua, is the same verb the NT confesses has found its fullest human embodiment in the one born in Bethlehem. The pastoral teacher does not need to perform this connection as an etymology trick. It is a canonical reality. The God who saves has a name.
יָשַׁע does not merely name an action in the OT — it names a character and a trajectory. The verb generates the noun יְשׁוּעָה (salvation), the name יְהוֹשׁוּעַ (Joshua/Yeshua), and runs a direct lexical line through the LXX into the NT via σῴζω (G4982). The NT's primary save verb is the direct Greek counterpart, and the name Iesous (Jesus) is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew name built on this root.
Matthew 1:21 makes the connection explicit: 'You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.' The canonical trajectory of יָשַׁע is therefore direct, not merely thematic: the verb that named what God did at the sea, what the king embodies in Zechariah 9, and what Isaiah's universal summons in 45:22 anticipates, is the verb that stands beneath the name and mission of Jesus.
This connection should be handled with precision and care — it is not an etymology trick, it is a canonical movement. The God of Israel who is Savior acts finally and fully in the one who bears the name.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Deliverance from confinement or danger; causatively, to make spacious/free, hence to save and preserve.
Deliverance from confinement or danger; causatively, to make spacious/free, hence to save and preserve.
properly, to be open, wide or free, i.e. (by implication) to be safe; causatively, to free or succor BDB: deliver Usage: × at all, avenging, defend, deliver(-er), help, preserve, rescue, be safe, bring (having) salvation, save(-iour), get victory.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 206 lexical occurrence verses.
יָשַׁע is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Affirms the Lord’s exclusive saving identity. Isaiah 43:8-13
Affirms the Lord’s exclusive role in eternal salvation. Isaiah 45:14-19
Affirms God as the active agent of salvation. Isaiah 46:1-4
Affirms God’s active role in redeeming his people. Isaiah 49:22-26
Greek words that correspond to or develop the meaning of this Hebrew word in the New Testament.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
This word opens a pathway into the entire biblical theology of salvation — not as abstract doctrine but as a history of divine intervention that runs from the sea to the manger to the cross. It allows the preacher to show that salvation is not a program, a self-improvement track, or a cooperative venture between God and human effort. It is what God does when no one else can. It also opens an honest conversation about prayer — why Israel cried to God and what they expected when they did.
It corrects any version of salvation that makes God a helper or an enhancer of human capacity. The verb describes intervention, not assistance. It also corrects the narrowing of salvation to a single moment of personal decision, when the canonical word spans military rescue, physical deliverance, healing from danger, and the ultimate rescue of a people from their sins.
And it corrects sentimental uses of 'saved' that have lost their weight — the verb carries the memory of people who were genuinely trapped, genuinely helpless, and genuinely delivered.
Start with the congregation's actual experience of being stuck. There are situations where human options run out — where the gap between the problem and the resources is simply too wide. Then go to Exodus 14. Show them a people standing between an army and the water. That is the scene the verb first appears in with full theological weight. The Lord saved Israel that day — not with Israel's help, not partially, not eventually.
That day. Frame the etymology of 'Jesus' not as a linguistic curiosity but as the canonical announcement: the name this child receives is the name of what God has been doing since the sea. The God who saves has entered his own story as the Savior.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain