ḥadash

• Ordinary people do this work: hired workmen patch up the temple, returning exiles rebuild ruined towns, and Samuel confirms a kingship a second time.2Ch 24:12Isa 61:41Sa 11:14
• Whatever it acts on is already there and has run down, so the work is repair of a standing but crumbling building or of towns long in ruins.2Ch 15:82Ch 24:4Isa 61:4
• It can reach backward to a condition that was once better, which is why "renew our days as of old" and youth coming back are natural things to say with it.Lam 5:21Psa 103:5
• It can even name an unwelcome fresh round of the same pressure, when Job complains that God keeps bringing witnesses against him again.Job 10:17

• One prayer sets them side by side for God's work inside a person, asking him to create a clean heart and to renew a steadfast spirit, so the two describe one act of change from two angles.Psa 51:10
• Both stand together in one line about the living world, where God's breath brings creatures into being and makes the face of the ground fresh again.Psa 104:30
• When God is the one at work, each names a change his people cannot produce for themselves and can only ask him for.Isa 41:20Lam 5:21

• Whenever the word means bringing something into being, the one doing it is always God, and no person ever does it.Gen 1:1Isa 40:28Amo 4:13
• It can speak of the very beginning, when the world, the sea creatures, and the first human beings came to be with nothing of the kind before them.Gen 1:21Gen 1:27Gen 5:1
• What it produces is unprecedented rather than recovered: a thing never seen before, a people brought into existence, a fresh sky and land.Num 16:30Isa 43:1Isa 65:17Jer 31:22
• The same spelling carries a second, unrelated meaning of clearing land by felling its trees and of cutting people down in judgment, which has nothing to do with making anything.Jos 17:15Jos 17:18Ezk 23:47

• Works on things that are never constructed at all: a person's inner life, a body's worn-out vigor, the living world after drought, a nation's lost days. Nothing is assembled here; something faded is made fresh again, so this word can be used where building language would make no sense.Psa 51:10Psa 103:5Psa 104:30Lam 5:21
• Puts an arrangement back into force rather than putting up a thing: Israel gathers at Gilgal to "renew" the kingship that already existed, and Job complains that God keeps bringing fresh witnesses against him one after another. The object is a standing relationship or a repeated action.1Sa 11:14Job 10:17

• Both describe bringing ruined places back: Isaiah sets them side by side in one promise, where the returning people "build" the ancient ruins and "repair" the wasted cities. When the object is a wrecked structure, either word can name the work.Isa 61:4Isa 58:12
• Both are used of the temple and its altar, at different stages of its life. Solomon "builds" the house and the altar in the first place; Asa "renews" the altar and Joash "repairs" the house once they have fallen into disrepair.2Ch 3:12Ch 15:82Ch 24:4

• Raises something that was not there before, out of stone, timber, or brick: an altar on open ground after the flood, a city with its tower, a house a man has just finished and not yet dedicated. This word can start a project from nothing, which is why it is the ordinary word for construction work.Gen 8:20Gen 11:4Deu 20:5
• Reaches beyond buildings to families and dynasties: God promises to "build" David a house, meaning a line of descendants; Sarai hopes to be "built up" through Hagar's child; Rachel and Leah together "built" the house of Israel. The picture of laying course on course carries over to children and generations.2Sa 7:27Gen 16:2Rut 4:11
• Stands as the settled opposite of tearing down, so it is regularly paired with demolition in statements about what God or a person does to a nation, a city, or a life. There is no comparable pairing for making something new again.Jer 1:10Ecc 3:3Job 12:14

• It reaches back to a good condition that has been lost and brings that condition back, so a people can ask for their days to be as they once were and a worn-out life can be young again.Lam 5:21Psa 103:5Psa 104:30
• It can mean doing the same thing over again from the start, so a kingship is confirmed a second time and Job can complain that a fresh round of the same accusations keeps arriving.1Sa 11:14Job 10:17
• What it produces is a fresh state of the thing rather than a firmer hold on it: the prayer is for a heart made clean and a spirit made new, and ruined towns come back as places fit to live in again.Psa 51:10Isa 61:4

• Both describe putting a run-down building back in working order, and one account of the temple repairs uses them of a single job: workmen are hired to renew the house and metalworkers to mend it.2Ch 24:122Ch 24:42Ki 12:5
• Both belong to the language of a king setting worship right, and they stand in one sentence about Asa, whose nerve held firm while the altar of the LORD was made new.2Ch 15:8
• Each can name help that comes from outside to people too far gone to help themselves: God makes their days new again, and he takes hands that have given out and makes them firm.Lam 5:21Isa 35:3Isa 41:13

• It can describe a hand closing on something, which is why angels take Lot by the hand, a torn robe is grabbed, and a frightened man clutches the horns of the altar.Gen 19:161Sa 15:271Ki 1:50
• It is the standard word for telling someone to be brave in the face of a hard task, so leaders hear it as a command before battle or before building.Deu 31:6Jos 1:61Ch 28:20
• It can name a resolve that has set hard against God, the settled stubbornness that keeps Pharaoh from letting Israel go.Exo 7:13Exo 9:12Exo 14:4
• It can describe a pressure that grows overwhelming, as when a famine tightens its grip on a land or a city until there is no food left.Gen 41:562Ki 25:3Jer 52:6

• Used of repairing what has fallen into ruin: buildings, altars, and whole cities put back into working order. This is builders' work, and the other word never carries it.2Ch 24:42Ch 24:122Ch 15:8Isa 61:4
• What results is fresh, not merely the same thing brought back again: strength that comes back like a young bird's, ground made green again, a fresh supply of accusers. The freshness is the whole point of the word.Psa 103:5Psa 104:30Job 10:17
• Used of confirming an arrangement that is already in force so that it takes hold with new strength: Israel gathers at Gilgal to renew Saul's kingship rather than to install a different king.1Sa 11:14

• Both describe God putting his people back into the good condition they have lost, and Lamentations 5:21 asks for both in one breath: bring us back to yourself, and make our days fresh as they were long ago.Lam 5:21
• Both can be prayed for one person's inner life. In a single psalm the writer asks God for a spirit made new in him (Psalm 51:10) and for the joy he once had to be given back (Psalm 51:12), and elsewhere it is his very life that God brings back.Psa 51:10Psa 51:12Psa 23:3

• Carries the plain physical sense of going back to the place you came from, which is by far its most common use. The other word is never used of travel.Gen 22:19Gen 8:9Rut 1:22
• Used of handing a thing or a person back to the rightful owner or place: give the man his wife back, put the silver back in the sacks, let every family go back to the land it had lost.Gen 20:7Gen 42:25Lev 25:10
• This is the ordinary Hebrew word for turning back to God, what English Bibles often render "repent" or "return to me". No one is ever said to be renewed toward God with the other word.Hos 14:1Jer 3:12Isa 55:7
• Can trace a thing back to where it began, even when that is a grim destination: the body goes back to the dust it was taken from and the breath goes back to God who gave it. Nothing is made fresh here, only returned.Gen 3:19Ecc 12:7

• Names the action of making fresh again: to renew or restore something that already exists, bringing it back to good condition.Psa 51:10Lam 5:21Psa 103:5
• Used for repairing or reestablishing physical and institutional things, such as a temple or a kingdom, putting them back in working order.2Ch 24:41Sa 11:14Isa 61:4

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• Describes a thing as new: fresh, recently made, never used before. It names a quality of an object, not an action done to it.Deu 20:52Ki 2:20Jdg 15:13
• Marks something as fresh by contrast with what came before, whether a fresh start in history or a song never sung until now.Exo 1:8Psa 96:1Ecc 1:9
• Carries the great promises of God making things new: a new heart, a new covenant, new heavens and a new earth.Ezk 36:26Jer 31:31Isa 65:17