to heave and lurch: to be thrown into violent rocking motion, the way ground bucks in an earthquake or water churns in a flood
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
This is a word for heavy, rocking motion, the kind that makes solid things behave like liquid. It appears only nine times, and nearly always at a moment of overwhelming force:
the ground bucking beneath a storm of divine anger
the sea straining against the shoreline that pens it in
the Nile swelling until its water spills over the land
people staggering on their feet as though they had been drinking
What holds those uses together is the picture of something surging back and forth rather than simply moving once. It is not a shiver or a tremor but a deep, repeated heaving. That is why one verb can carry the foundations of the earth, the swell of a river in flood, and a crowd that cannot stay upright.
In the poem shared by 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18 it is stacked with a second quaking word (רָעַשׁ) and a third for shuddering agitation (רָגַז), three verbs piled up to say that the world itself came unsteady when God answered. Jeremiah then reuses the picture twice: the sea heaves against the sand God set as its boundary and still cannot break through, and Egypt rises and surges like the annual flood, only to be pushed back the same way.
Nuances
1athe ground heaves: the earth and the foundations beneath it lurch and rock as God comes near in anger
TranslatabilityDirect
2Sa 22:8 (2×)Psa 18:7(8) (2×)
1bwater heaves: the sea churns against the limit set for it, or a river swells and surges past its banks
TranslatabilityApproximate
Jer 5:22Jer 46:7Jer 46:8
1cpeople heave: a crowd lurches and staggers, unable to keep its footing under terror or judgment
even of people, the picture is the same heaving the sea and the ground make elsewhereJer 25:16
Both
both describe someone who has lost their footing and cannot stand stillJer 25:16
Only reel
"reel" in English suggests dizziness or a blow to the head, a sensation inside a person rather than a force rocking them
“quake”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“surge”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“toss”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“stagger”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How ga'ash differs from similar Hebrew words
רָעַשׁthe common word for quaking, used far more widely and often of God shaking something, where this word stresses the heavy back-and-forth surging itself
It is the word for water heaving up and down. The sea throws its waves against the sand boundary God set and still cannot pass it, and Egypt is pictured as the Nile swelling until its waters surge over the land.Jer 5:22Jer 46:7Jer 46:8
The heaving can seize human bodies rather than the ground under them: the nations drink the cup and lurch about like drunks before the sword, and at midnight ordinary people are shaken loose from life and pass on.Jer 25:16Job 34:20
Both
Both describe the ground itself heaving in a violent quake because God is angry, with the foundations of the world giving way.2Sa 22:8
They overlap closely enough that the poet stacks them back to back in one line for force, which is why English versions reach for two near twin words such as "reeled" and "shook" to carry a single picture.Psa 18:7
God announces this shaking in his own voice as something he is about to do: I am shaking the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land, and I will shake all the nations.Hag 2:6Hag 2:7Hag 2:21Ezk 31:16Psa 60:2
It reaches past the ground to the structures people build on it, so that kingdoms, coastlands, city walls, and temple thresholds are all said to shake. Collapsing power is described as a tremor.Isa 14:16Ezk 26:10Ezk 26:15Amo 9:1
It also covers motion with no disaster in it at all: a warhorse made to leap like a locust, and a field of grain waving on the hilltops like the trees of Lebanon.Job 39:20Psa 72:16
רָגַזshaking as agitation and unrest, trembling with fear or fury, rather than the physical heave of ground and water
Pictures water on the move: a river swelling and rolling the way the Nile does in flood, and sea waves heaving against the limit set for them.Jer 46:7Jer 46:8Jer 5:22
When people are the ones shaking, it is still that heaving, out of control motion: those who drink the cup of judgment lurch about like drunks, and a people struck at midnight is convulsed and swept away.Jer 25:16Job 34:20
Both
Both describe the solid world giving way when God comes in anger, and one line uses them together: the earth heaves while the foundations of the heavens quake.2Sa 22:8
They sit close enough in meaning that the same poem stacks them for a single event, and English versions swap the same handful of words between them, rendered "shook", "quaked", or "trembled".Psa 18:7
Covers anger, so it is often rendered "rage", "be angry", or "quarrel": a king raging against God, a fool who storms and laughs with no rest in him, brothers warned not to fall out on the road.2Ki 19:28Pro 29:9Ezk 16:43Gen 45:24
Names dread and grief felt inside a person, not just movement outside: nations shuddering at the news of what God has done, a father shaken as he weeps for his son, a prophet whose insides churn at what he hears.Exo 15:142Sa 18:33Hab 3:16Isa 32:11
Works as the opposite of rest, so it can be something one party does to another: Samuel asks why Saul has disturbed him, Israel is promised a place where it will never be troubled again, and Babylon is given unrest while the land is given quiet.1Sa 28:152Sa 7:10Jer 50:34
חוּלwrithing and twisting in pain, like a woman in labor, rather than rocking back and forth
Fits a flood surging up and throwing its water around, a river in spate rather than a body in distress. Egypt on the march is pictured as the Nile rising and tossing its waters over the land.Jer 46:7Jer 46:8
When people are the subject, it is always about losing their footing, never about pain. Those made to drink the cup of judgment stagger like drunks, and the powerful are jolted out of place at midnight and gone.Jer 25:16Job 34:20
Both
Jeremiah sets the two side by side in a single question about God's power: the sea heaves against a boundary it cannot cross, and the hearers are asked why they do not shake in fear before the God who set that boundary.Jer 5:22
Both can describe the ground itself shaking when God shows up in anger or in power, so either word can carry the shudder of the earth before him.2Sa 22:8Psa 18:7Psa 29:8Psa 97:4Psa 114:7
Both are used of water in violent motion at the edge of chaos, whether a river tossing its flood or the deep waters shuddering at the sight of God.Jer 46:7Psa 77:16
This is the ordinary word for a woman writhing in labor, and prophets reach for it when they want a picture of terror that cannot be stopped or hurried.Isa 26:17Isa 66:7Isa 13:8
It reaches past the pain of birth to the fact of being born, so it can say the mountains and the earth were brought forth before the world began, and that God himself gave Israel birth.Psa 90:2Pro 8:25Deu 32:18
It names what someone feels inside rather than what is happening to their body: a heart in anguish within the chest, or a wicked man in torment every day he lives.Psa 55:4Job 15:20
Because the ache of waiting feels like this, the word can mean the waiting itself, and English Bibles render it "waited" or "wait patiently" with no trace of shaking left.Gen 8:10Jdg 3:25Psa 37:7
It also covers whirling round in a circle, which is why it can describe girls coming out to dance at a festival and a storm spinning down onto the heads of the wicked.Jdg 21:21Jer 23:19
נוּעַtottering, wavering, or wandering with no firm footing, a loss of stability rather than a violent surge
The shaking starts deep underneath, in the supports of the world: when God comes in anger the earth heaves and the foundations of the sky and of the mountains convulse, so the movement is a violent upheaval of what holds everything up, not a sway at the surface.2Sa 22:8Psa 18:7
It is the word for a huge body of water on the move: the sea heaving against the boundary God set for it, and the Nile swelling and surging like a flood as Egypt marches out.Jer 5:22Jer 46:7Jer 46:8
The upheaval can carry people off for good: at midnight a whole population is convulsed and simply passes away, and the powerful are removed without any human hand touching them.Job 34:20
Both
Both picture people staggering like drunks, off balance because judgment has taken their footing away rather than because of anything they drank.Jer 25:16Psa 107:27Isa 29:9
Both can be said of the earth itself, so that the one surface a person counts on to stay put is the very thing giving way.Psa 18:7Isa 24:20
Most often there is no shaking at all, only homeless drifting: Cain sentenced to a life with no settled place, Israel kept moving in the wilderness for forty years, whole towns straggling to another town for water, and people searching from one sea to the other and finding nothing.Gen 4:12Gen 4:14Num 32:13Amo 4:8Amo 8:12
It covers small deliberate movements of the body, above all the head wagged at someone in scorn, and it stretches down to lips moving silently in prayer.2Ki 19:21Psa 22:7Lam 2:151Sa 1:13
It names the quiver of fear in something that is still standing: a king's heart swaying the way woodland trees sway in the wind, doorposts shuddering at a voice, Egypt's idols tottering when God arrives, a crowd at the mountain shrinking back.Isa 7:2Isa 6:4Isa 19:1Exo 20:18
Someone can do this to something else on purpose, with a steady back and forth motion: grain shaken about in a sieve, or a ripe fig tree shaken until the fruit drops into a waiting mouth.Amo 9:9Nam 3:12
מוֹטslipping or giving way, what happens when a support fails, where this word is the force that makes things give way
Only this word is used of water in heavy motion: the sea churning against the shoreline set as its limit, and the Nile swelling until it spills over the land.Jer 5:22Jer 46:7Jer 46:8
When it is used of people, the whole body lurches, the way someone reels after drinking, rather than a foot losing its grip on the ground.Jer 25:16Job 34:20
Both
Both picture the ground itself giving up its steadiness when an overwhelming force arrives, so that the foundations of the earth no longer hold still.2Sa 22:8Psa 18:7Isa 24:19Psa 82:5
Both can say that a person cannot stay upright, whether from the terror of judgment or from ground that will not hold a foot.Jer 25:16Deu 32:35Psa 94:18
This word is most often used with a negative, as a promise of security: the person who trusts God, and the world God founded, "shall not be moved".Psa 15:5Psa 16:8Psa 104:5Psa 112:6Psa 125:1
It reaches past physical motion into a person's whole position in life, so that losing your footing means being ruined, brought down, or left without the means to stand.Psa 10:6Psa 62:2Pro 10:30Pro 12:3Lev 25:35
It is also used of a made object working loose from its fastening, as when a craftsman nails down an idol so that it will not wobble.Isa 40:20Isa 41:7
ga'ash in the other biblical languages
σαλεύωGreek“to shake”the Greek word for being shaken loose from a firm footing, used of both a reed in the wind and a building brought down, closest to this word when people or a sea are rocked
Water is its home ground: the sea straining against the shoreline God set as its limit, and the Nile swelling until its waters surge out over the land. The Greek word is never used of water anywhere in the New Testament.Jer 5:22Jer 46:7Jer 46:8
Every use is a heavy, repeated heaving, never a sway or a jostle: ground bucking under a storm of anger, and people convulsed and gone in the middle of the night. The word carries the violence in itself, so the scene is always overwhelming force.2Sa 22:8Job 34:20
Both
Both describe the solid world losing its footing when God acts: the earth's foundations heaving as he answers, and creation itself shaken when he comes to judge.2Sa 22:8Psa 18:7Mat 24:29Heb 12:26
They are matched words across the two Testaments. Where the Hebrew poem says the earth shook, the old Greek translation of the Old Testament used this Greek verb, so a Greek reader met the same word Luke uses when the place where the believers were praying was shaken.Psa 18:7Act 4:31
Both reach past objects to people, who become the thing rocked: nations stagger on their feet after drinking the cup of God's anger, and a church is warned not to be knocked off its settled thinking by a false rumor.Jer 25:162Th 2:2
It covers light, ordinary shaking with no disaster in view, and the shaking can even be a good thing: a marsh reed swaying in the wind, or a measure of grain jostled so the contents settle and more will fit. The Hebrew word is never used of anything this small or this harmless.Mat 11:7Luk 7:24Luk 6:38
It is the word for what buildings do under pressure, whether they hold or give way: a house on rock that the flood could not shake, and a jail whose foundations were shaken loose. The Hebrew word never speaks of anything people built.Luk 6:48Act 16:26
It takes someone doing the shaking, so one group can deliberately shake up another, and God can keep a person from being shaken at all: agitators stirred the crowds into unrest against Paul, while the psalm Peter quotes says "I shall not be shaken" because the Lord is at hand. The Hebrew word says only that something is heaving, never that a person is being kept steady.Act 17:13Act 2:25
σείωGreek“to shake”the main Greek word for the earth quaking, as at the crucifixion, matching this word where the ground itself heaves
It is the word for water in violent motion, waves heaving against the shore they cannot cross and the Nile rising and churning like a river in flood.Jer 5:22Jer 46:7Jer 46:8
It describes people losing their footing under judgment, staggering like drunks and shaken out of their place by no human hand.Jer 25:16Job 34:20
Both
Both name the ground itself heaving when God acts, so the quake reads as the world reacting to him rather than as ordinary weather.2Sa 22:8Mat 27:51
Each is the ordinary verb of its own language for something solid thrown into violent motion, so English Bibles render both of them "shook" or "quaked", and the promise that God will one day shake heaven and earth carries the same picture the Hebrew poets use of the ground rocking under him.Psa 18:7Heb 12:26
It moves past ground and water to people themselves, describing a whole city thrown into commotion when Jesus rides in, and soldiers shaking with fright at the tomb.Mat 21:10Mat 28:4
It covers an everyday shaking with no hint of judgment, wind rocking a fig tree until its unripe fruit drops.Rev 6:13
What scholars say about ga'ash
The standard lexica treat this as a single root meaning to shake or quake violently, with no homonym proposed. BDB, HALOT, and DCH distribute the nine attestations across three stems: qal at Psalm 18:7, pual at Job 34:20, and hithpael for the remaining seven, the hithpael carrying an iterative, back-and-forth force glossed "to reel, toss, surge". The doubled use in the parallel theophany of 2 Samuel 22:8 and Psalm 18:7, where the verb stands alongside רעשׁ and רגז, is the securest attestation of the earthquake sense. HALOT and DCH group the Jeremiah passages (5:22; 46:7 to 46:8) as the same motion transferred to the sea and to the Nile in flood, and Jeremiah 25:16 as the drunken reeling of the nations who drink the cup. Job 34:20 is the least secure occurrence: the passive form with עָם as subject has been read both as bodily convulsion in death and as the shaking of a people out of its place, and a minority of commentators have suspected textual corruption. Cognate support is thin; the toponym גַּעַשׁ (Mount Gaash, Joshua 24:30) is generally referred to the same root but contributes little semantically.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. גָּעַשׁlexicon
BDB, s.v. גָּעַשׁlexicon
DCH, s.v. גָּעַשׁlexicon
TWOT, s.v. גָּעַשׁtheological-dictionary
William McKane, Jeremiah, International Critical Commentarycommentary
David J. A. Clines, Job 21-37, Word Biblical Commentarycommentary