to break in two: to part a whole thing into pieces
At its heart this verb means to break a whole thing in two. It is a physical, hands-on word: you take something entire and part it into pieces.
In everyday use it is what you do to a loaf of bread. In the world of the Bible, breaking bread and sharing it are one and the same motion, because you cannot hand someone a portion without first breaking the loaf. So when Isaiah calls his hearers to break their bread for the hungry, the breaking is the giving. The same picture lies behind the mourner's meal in Jeremiah 16, where neighbors would break bread to comfort a grieving family.
The word's other home is the food laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. There it describes an animal whose hoof is split into two, the mark of a creature Israel is allowed to eat. The link is the same idea of dividing: a clean animal is, quite literally, one whose foot is parted in two. Psalm 69 leans on the same image of an ox with a properly split hoof.
Nuances
In Jeremiah 16:7 the verb stands without a stated object in the Hebrew text; whether the original read "bread" (so the line pictures breaking bread for mourners) is debated.
- majorityThe word "bread" should be restored as the object, so the line describes breaking bread for the bereaved; the ancient Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Aramaic versions all supply it, and the parallel "cup of consolation" later in the verse points to a funeral meal.; Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1-20, Anchor Bible; William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1, Hermeneia
- minorityThe received Hebrew text should be kept as it stands; the versions may have added "bread" simply because it made obvious sense, and the change rests on inference rather than manuscript evidence (the UBS committee rated the restoration with low confidence).; James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (1968)