# H1254 - bara

<!-- type: lexicon | created: 2026-04-26 | updated: 2026-04-26 -->

**Strong's:** [H1254](https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h1254/) · BLB lookup
**Pronunciation:** baw-raw'
**Part of speech:** verb (primitive root)
**Frequency:** ~54 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, concentrated in the Pentateuch and Isaiah.

## Semantic range (Brown-Driver-Briggs)

1. **(Qal) to create, shape, fashion**, the foundational Genesis-1 sense.
2. **(Niphal) to be created**, the passive of (1).
3. **(Piel) to cut down, cut out, clear (a forest)**, a derived sense.
4. **(Hiphil) to be fat / to make fat**, rare, distinct stem ([1 Samuel 2:29](/codex/1-samuel-2-29/)).

## Theological force

In its **Qal stem**, the only stem used for the divine-creation sense, the subject is **always God**. No human being ever "barāʾ"s in the Hebrew Bible. This is the lexicographer's strongest argument that *bara* names a category of activity reserved for deity: bringing into being something new, not merely re-shaping pre-existing material. While *bara* itself does not lexically *require* creation *ex nihilo* (Hebrew has no terminological equivalent for the technical Latin *creatio ex nihilo*), the word's distribution and its pairing in [Genesis 1:1](/codex/genesis-1-1/) with the absolute-temporal *bereshit* (H7225) is what undergirds the doctrine: God brings the heavens and the earth into existence at the temporal beginning, not from any prior material.

The verb is paired in [Genesis 1.1](/codex/genesis-1-1/) with [H7225 - reshit](/codex/h7225-reshit/) ("beginning"), and the trio *bara* + *Elohim* + *reshit* is the conceptual core of biblical creation theology.

## Notable verses

- **[Genesis 1.1](/codex/genesis-1-1/)**, *בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים*, "In the beginning God created"
- **[Genesis 1.27](/codex/genesis-1-27/)**, *barāʾ* used three times in one verse for the creation of *adam* in God's image
- **[Genesis 2:3](/codex/genesis-2-3/)**, God blessed the seventh day "because in it He rested from all His work which God had created (*barāʾ*) and made"
- **[Genesis 5:1](/codex/genesis-5-1/)**, "the day God created (*barāʾ*) man, in the likeness of God He made him"
- **[Isaiah 40:26](/codex/isaiah-40-26/)**, "Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created (*barāʾ*) these things"
- **[Isaiah 42:5](/codex/isaiah-42-5/)**, "Thus says God the LORD, who created (*barāʾ*) the heavens"
- **[Isaiah 43:1](/codex/isaiah-43-1/)**, "thus says the LORD, your Creator (*bōrēʾ*), O Jacob"
- **[Isaiah 43:7](/codex/isaiah-43-7/)**, "everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created (*barāʾ*) for My glory"
- **[Isaiah 45:7](/codex/isaiah-45-7/)**, "the One forming light and creating (*barāʾ*) darkness"
- **[Isaiah 65:17](/codex/isaiah-65-17/)**, "I create (*barāʾ*) new heavens and a new earth"
- **[Psalm 51:10](/codex/psalms-51-10/)**, "Create (*barāʾ*) in me a clean heart, O God", extended metaphorically to spiritual renewal
- **[Amos 4:13](/codex/amos-4-13/)**, "He who forms mountains and creates (*barāʾ*) the wind"
- **[Malachi 2:10](/codex/malachi-2-10/)**, "Has not one God created (*barāʾ*) us?"

## Patristic / scholarly note

The Septuagint renders *barāʾ* with κτίζω (*ktizō*, G2936), preserving the divine-action specificity. Augustine (*Confessions* 11-13, c. AD 400; *City of God* 11, c. AD 420) develops the doctrine of creation *ex nihilo* by reading *bara* in [Genesis 1:1](/codex/genesis-1-1/) alongside [Hebrews 11:3](/codex/hebrews-11-3/) ("the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible") and 2 Maccabees 7:28. He argues against the Greek philosophical assumption of eternal pre-existing matter on the basis of this distinctive Hebrew verb. Modern scholarship (e.g., Bruce Waltke, *Genesis* commentary; John Sailhamer, *The Pentateuch as Narrative*) confirms the lexical pattern but qualifies that *bara* alone does not entail *ex nihilo*, that doctrine is the joint exegesis of *bara* + the absolute *bereshit* + the broader canonical witness.

## Verses in this codex

_See Obsidian's backlinks pane for every verse page linking here._ Top-cited references using *bara*: [Genesis 1.1](/codex/genesis-1-1/), [Genesis 1.27](/codex/genesis-1-27/).

## See also

- [H0430 - elohim](/codex/h0430-elohim/), paired with *bara* in [Genesis 1:1](/codex/genesis-1-1/)
- [H7225 - reshit](/codex/h7225-reshit/), "in the beginning" of [Genesis 1:1](/codex/genesis-1-1/)
- [H1961 - hayah](/codex/h1961-hayah/), "to be" ([Genesis 1:3](/codex/genesis-1-3/), "let there be")
- [G2936 - ktizo](/codex/g2936-ktizo/), Greek equivalent in LXX and NT