to do or make: to bring something about by acting, whether shaping a thing or carrying out a deed
This is Hebrew's all-purpose verb for acting. By itself it says almost nothing beyond "bring about by doing", and nearly all of its meaning comes from whatever follows it. The same verb builds an ark, sets out a meal, keeps the Passover, treats a neighbor well or badly, and yields a crop of grapes.
Because the verb carries so little weight of its own, the phrase is the real unit of meaning, not the word. A tree that "does" fruit is bearing it. A king who "does" evil in the LORD's sight is practicing it as policy. A people who "do" the commandments are obeying them: Israel's answer at Sinai, "we will do and we will hear", runs acting and obeying together in a way English has to pull apart.
It is also the ordinary partner of the rarer verb for creating (בָּרָא). Genesis 1 uses both of the same act: God says "let us make humankind", and the next line reports that he created them. The difference is not that one verb can say something the other cannot, but that only God ever creates, while making and doing belong to God and people alike. Isaiah stacks the words for one single act, calling God the one who created the heavens, shaped (יָצַר) the earth and made it.
That shared vocabulary carries a sting in the prophets and the Psalms. The God who made heaven and earth is set against idols that are themselves made, the work of human hands, until the people who make them come to look like what they made.
Nuances
Disputed
Whether עָשָׂה is semantically distinguished from בָּרָא in the creation accounts, or is simply the general verb used interchangeably alongside it.
- majorityבָּרָא is marked only by its exclusively divine subject, not by a technical sense of creation out of nothing. Genesis and Isaiah use עָשָׂה, יָצַר and בָּרָא in parallel of the same acts (Genesis 1:26 and 1:27; Genesis 2:4; Isaiah 43:7; Isaiah 45:18), so no categorical contrast can be loaded onto the verbs themselves; עָשָׂה is the general term, available to God, people and even animals as subject.; Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary 1 (Waco: Word, 1987); Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989); Bill T. Arnold, Genesis, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961); Moises Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994)
- minorityEllen van Wolde argues that בָּרָא in Genesis 1 does not mean to create at all but to separate spatially, which would leave the making of new things entirely to עָשָׂה. The proposal has been widely criticized, since Isaiah 45:7 and the other occurrences of בָּרָא resist the sense and Hebrew already has בדל for separating in Genesis 1.; Ellen van Wolde, "Why the Verb ברא Does Not Mean to Create in Genesis 1.1-2.4a", Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.1 (2009): 3-23; Ellen van Wolde and Robert Rezetko, response to Becking and Korpel, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 11 (2011)
- minorityBob Becking and Marjo Korpel, responding to van Wolde, argue that בָּרָא is better rendered construct or build, which again narrows the gap between it and the ordinary making of עָשָׂה.; Bob Becking and Marjo C. A. Korpel, "To Create, to Separate or to Construct: An Alternative for a Recent Proposal as to the Interpretation of ברא in Gen 1:1-2:4a", Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 10 (2010)
- minorityJohn Walton argues that בָּרָא describes bringing something into functional existence, assigning it a role within an ordered system, rather than manufacturing matter; on this reading עָשָׂה remains the verb of ordinary production. Critics object that objects of בָּרָא such as darkness and calamity in Isaiah 45:7 are neither material objects nor functional roles.; John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009)