To burst (literally or figuratively)
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H7665 is a Hebrew verb with a broad breaking range: to fracture, shatter, smash, wreck, breach, or break down, with extended uses for broken strength, brokenheartedness, ruined objects, defeated power, and interrupted provision. Psalm 34 speaks of broken hearts, Jeremiah of useless broken cisterns, Leviticus of God breaking an enslaving yoke, and Isaiah of the servant refusing to break a bruised reed.
Reader summary
Full entry for שָׁבַר (H7665) · Open the biblical lexicon
H7665 is a Hebrew verb with a broad breaking range: to fracture, shatter, smash, wreck, breach, or break down, with extended uses for broken strength, brokenheartedness, ruined objects, defeated power, and interrupted provision. Psalm 34 speaks of broken hearts, Jeremiah of useless broken cisterns, Leviticus of God breaking an enslaving yoke, and Isaiah of.
The BSB source-word alignment has 147 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include and shattered (6), I will break (6), is broken (6), break (5), to pieces (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 19:9. Its strongest book concentrations include Jeremiah (28), Ezekiel (21), Psalms (21), Isaiah (14).
H7665 is a Hebrew verb with a broad breaking range: to fracture, shatter, smash, wreck, breach, or break down, with extended uses for broken strength, brokenheartedness, ruined objects, defeated power, and interrupted provision. Psalm 34 speaks of broken hearts, Jeremiah of useless broken cisterns, Leviticus of God breaking an enslaving yoke, and Isaiah of the servant refusing to break a bruised reed.
The verb therefore does not make breaking inherently good or bad. The object, agent, means, and outcome govern the sense. H7665 can help teachers name trauma, repentance, liberation, judgment, fragile people, failed systems, and repair. It must not romanticize abuse as God's method, command victims to remain where they are being broken, equate emotional collapse with holiness, or use brokenness language to avoid medical care, protection, justice, restitution, and patient rebuilding.
H7665 describes broken objects, bodies, power, yokes, defenses, hearts, covenants, and supplies. Its varied subjects and objects require readers to distinguish harm, judgment, liberation, grief, and protective gentleness.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.
The Lord draws near to people whose hearts are broken and saves those crushed in spirit, presenting divine presence rather than admiration of their pain.
“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Judah's broken cisterns cannot hold water, exposing the futility of abandoning the living fountain for self-made substitutes.
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk in uprightness.
God recalls breaking the bars of Israel's yoke in the exodus, so breaking here names liberation from enslaving power.
A bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice.
The servant will not break an already bruised reed, joining gentleness toward the vulnerable with faithful justice.
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. Fracturing or shattering, both physical destruction and emotional/spiritual devastation of heart or will
Fracturing or shattering, both physical destruction and emotional/spiritual devastation of heart or will
to burst (literally or figuratively) BDB: break Usage: break (down, off, in pieces, up), broken (-hearted), bring to the birth, crush, destroy, hurt, quench, × quite, tear, view (by mistake for 7663).
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 149 lexical occurrence verses.
שָׁבַר is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H7665 forces teachers to ask what kind of breaking a text describes. A yoke broken by God is liberation; a cistern broken by human unfaithfulness is failure; a broken heart is met by God's nearness; a bruised reed is precisely what the servant refuses to break. Those differences matter pastorally. Churches should never tell abused people that God needs them to endure further breaking so they can become useful.
Trauma symptoms, depression, grief, and exhaustion are not proof of hidden rebellion, and qualified medical or psychological care is not resistance to grace. At the same time, harmful power, deceptive systems, idols, and unjust bonds may genuinely need to be dismantled. Faithful action names the object and seeks a just outcome: protect people, stop violence, tell the truth, preserve evidence, report lawfully, repair what can be repaired, and lament what cannot simply be restored.
God's closeness to the brokenhearted does not praise the force that wounded them. It promises that injury does not place sufferers beyond his attention, while the servant's gentleness sets a pattern for leadership that refuses to crush those already bruised.
Ps.34.18
H7665 is a Hebrew verb whose stems and objects express breaking, shattering, destroying, causing fracture, or being broken. Concrete objects, body imagery, emotional idioms, and political or covenant settings must be distinguished rather than treated as one spiritual condition.
Old Testament H7665 texts range from smashed objects and defeated power to broken hearts and the servant's protective gentleness. New Testament themes of healing, liberation, repentance, suffering, and restoration should be connected canonically without pretending that every use shares one cause or remedy.