Biblica Analytica

אָבַד

a.vad (H0006)

to perish

184 verses 25 books OT 174 / NT 0
AI Word Study

# Analysis of אָבַד (avad) - "to perish" The Hebrew verb אָבַד appears 184 times throughout the biblical text, making it a moderately frequent term for describing loss or destruction. Its core meaning, "to perish," encompasses the idea of something coming to an end or ceasing to exist. This root captures both the state of being lost or destroyed and the process of deterioration leading to that state. The high frequency of this word across the biblical corpus suggests it addressed concerns central to Hebrew thought and experience. The term likely covered a range of related scenarios—from physical death and material loss to the disappearance of people, animals, or objects. Its repeated use indicates that biblical authors regularly needed language to express the concept of irretrievable loss, whether describing personal tragedy, national disaster, or the fate of the wicked. The prevalence of אָבַד in narrative, prophetic, and wisdom literature suggests the concept of perishing was theologically significant across different genres and time periods of biblical composition. Without access to specific contextual examples, the full semantic range remains defined by the primary definition provided; however, the substantial number of occurrences indicates this was a foundational concept for expressing destruction, loss, and finality in ancient Hebrew religious and historical discourse.

AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.

Exodus 10:7

Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve Yahweh, their God. Don’t you yet know that Egypt is destroyed?”

Leviticus 23:30

Whoever does any kind of work in that same day, I will destroy that person from among his people.

Leviticus 26:38

You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up.

Numbers 16:33

So they, and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol. The earth closed on them, and they perished from among the assembly.

Numbers 17:12

The children of Israel spoke to Moses, saying, “Behold, we perish! We are undone! We are all undone!

Numbers 21:29

Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorites.

Numbers 21:30

We have shot at them. Heshbon has perished even to Dibon. We have laid waste even to Nophah, Which reaches to Medeba.”

Numbers 24:19

Out of Jacob shall one have dominion, and shall destroy the remnant from the city.”

Numbers 33:52

then 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 4:26

I 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 7:10

and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack to him who hates him. He will repay him to his face.

Deuteronomy 7:20

Moreover Yahweh your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left, and hide themselves, perish from before you.

Deuteronomy 7:24

He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under the sky. No one will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them.

Deuteronomy 8:19

It shall be, if you shall forget Yahweh your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you shall surely perish.

Deuteronomy 8:20

As the nations that Yahweh makes to perish before you, so you shall perish, because you wouldn’t listen to Yahweh your God’s voice.

Deuteronomy 9:3

Know therefore today that Yahweh your God is he who goes over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them and he will bring them down before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as Yahweh has spoken to you.

Deuteronomy 11:4

and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red Sea to overflow them as they pursued you, and how Yahweh has destroyed them to this day;

Deuteronomy 11:17

and Yahweh’s anger be kindled against you, and he shut up the sky so that there is no rain, and the land doesn’t yield its fruit; and you perish quickly from off the good land which Yahweh gives you.

Deuteronomy 12:2

You shall surely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods: on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

Deuteronomy 12:3

You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and burn their Asherah poles with fire. You shall cut down the engraved images of their gods. You shall destroy their name out of that place.

Deuteronomy 22:3

So you shall do with his donkey. So you shall do with his garment. So you shall do with every lost thing of your brother’s, which he has lost and you have found. You may not hide yourself.

Deuteronomy 26:5

You shall answer and say before Yahweh your God, “My father was a Syrian ready to perish. He went down into Egypt, and lived there, few in number. There he became a great, mighty, and populous nation.

Deuteronomy 28:20

Yahweh will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me.

Deuteronomy 28:22

Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.

Deuteronomy 28:51

They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

Deuteronomy 28:63

It will happen that as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess.

Deuteronomy 30:18

I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you pass over the Jordan to go in to possess it.

Deuteronomy 32:28

For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them.

Joshua 7:7

Joshua said, “Alas, Lord Yahweh, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? I wish that we had been content and lived beyond the Jordan!

Joshua 23:13

know for a certainty that Yahweh your God will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you.

Joshua 23:16

when you disobey the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them. Then Yahweh’s anger will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you.”

Judges 5:31

“So let all your enemies perish, Yahweh, but let those who love him be as the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had rest forty years.

1 Samuel 9:3

The donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, were lost. Kish said to Saul his son, “Now take one of the servants with you, and arise, go look for the donkeys.”

1 Samuel 9:20

As for your donkeys who were lost three days ago, don’t set your mind on them; for they have been found. For whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you, and for all your father’s house?”

2 Samuel 1:27

How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war have perished!”

2 Kings 9:8

For the whole house of Ahab will perish. I will cut off from Ahab everyone who urinates against a wall, both him who is shut up and him who is left at large in Israel.

2 Kings 10:19

Now therefore call to me all the prophets of Baal, all of his worshipers, and all of his priests. Let no one be absent; for I have a great sacrifice to Baal. Whoever is absent, he shall not live.” But Jehu did deceptively, intending to destroy the worshipers of Baal.

2 Kings 11:1

Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal offspring.

2 Kings 13:7

For he didn’t leave to Jehoahaz of the people any more than fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing.

2 Kings 19:18

and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them.

2 Kings 21:3

For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he raised up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel did, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them.

2 Kings 24:2

Yahweh sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to Yahweh’s word, which he spoke by his servants the prophets.

Esther 3:9

If it pleases the king, let it be written that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who are in charge of the king’s business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.”

Esther 3:13

Letters 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 4:7

Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.

Esther 4:14

For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Esther 4:16

“Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

Esther 7:4

For 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 8:5

She said, “If it pleases the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right to the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the king’s provinces.

Esther 8:11

In 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,

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