StrongerBible

shuph

שׁוּף

HebrewH7779“bruise, crush, ...”

Appears 4 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 3:15 (2×)Job 9:17Psa 139:11
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeshoofverb

What shuph means

to strike, crush, or fall heavily upon

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This verb appears only four times in the Hebrew Bible, and its exact meaning has never been settled. The best evidence comes from related later Hebrew and Aramaic words that mean to rub, grind, or file something down, which point to a core idea of striking or crushing with force. That fits its two clearest uses, where a violent physical blow is in view.

In Genesis it describes the blow exchanged between the woman's offspring and the serpent, and in Job it describes God falling upon Job as if with a storm. In the one remaining use, in Psalm 139, the subject is darkness rather than a person, and the idea of crushing no longer fits; there translators stretch the word toward overwhelm or close in around me, and some scholars suspect the text was altered in copying. Because the word is so rare, each occurrence has to be weighed on its own.

The most discussed use is in Genesis 3:15. The same word is used of both sides of the conflict, and the choice of English word (crush, strike at, or lie in wait for) often carries real weight, since it colors whether the verse reads as a promise of decisive victory over the serpent or only as a picture of unending hostility. That is an interpretive decision more than a purely lexical one, and readers should know the word itself does not force the answer.

Nuances

1ato strike a crushing blow, especially to a part of the body
Gen 3:15 (2×)Job 9:17
Gen 3:15

How to render the verb in Genesis 3:15, where it appears in both halves of the line with the woman's offspring and the serpent as alternating subject and object, and whether it carries the same sense in each half.

  • majorityThe verb means the same thing in both clauses (strike or crush); the asymmetry lies only in the body part struck, a fatal blow to the head versus a wounding blow to the heel.; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 197-98; Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, WBC 1 (Waco: Word, 1987), 80; Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 93-94
  • minorityThe verb carries two senses by deliberate wordplay: the offspring crushes the serpent's head while the serpent only snaps at or lies in wait for the heel, an asymmetry that favors a decisive-victory reading.; Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, tr. I. Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961), 1:161; Derek Kidner, Genesis, TOTC (Downers Grove: IVP, 1967), 75
1bto close in on and overwhelm, as darkness envelops a person
CertaintyObscure
Psa 139:11
Psa 139:11

What the verb means in Psalm 139:11, where darkness is its subject (surely the darkness will ___ me) and the ordinary crush sense fits poorly, and whether the received Hebrew text should be kept or emended.

  • contestedKeep the received text and stretch the verb toward overwhelm, cover, or close around me. A Dead Sea scroll (11QPsa) preserves the received consonants, weighing against any correction.; Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms (New York: Norton, 2007), ad loc.; John Goldingay, Psalms, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), ad loc.
  • contestedCorrect the text to a similar-looking verb meaning to cover or screen me.; F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906), s.v.; Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60-150, CC (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 510
  • minorityTake the verb as trample or crush, following the Septuagint.; Septuagint, Psalm 138:11 LXX (καταπατέω)
  • minorityDerive the verb from a separate word meaning to observe or watch, yielding darkness will observe me.; Mitchell Dahood, Psalms III: 101-150, AB 17A (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970), 284, 291-92

What scholars say about shuph

The verb שׁוּף occurs only four times (Genesis 3:15 twice, Job 9:17, Psalm 139:11), and its rarity leaves its meaning insecure; Skinner and von Rad frankly concede that no fully satisfactory interpretation can be fixed. The cleanest cognate evidence is post-biblical Hebrew and Aramaic šûp / šĕpap and Syriac, all meaning to rub, grind, polish, or file (the verb the Targum and Peshitta use to render "grind" at Exodus 32:20); this supports a core sense in the crush, grind, and strike family and is the basis for BDB's gloss "bruise" and Van Dam's "crush" in NIDOTTE. Three positions have hardened. (1) A single root meaning crush or strike: BDB and Van Dam reject any derivation from a separate root, and Hamilton, Waltke, Wenham, Sarna, and Speiser read Genesis 3:15 identically in both clauses. (2) Two or three homonyms: HALOT lists šûp I "crush, trample" (comparing Akkadian šâpu) and šûp II as a byform of šā'ap "snap at," with a possible third root "cover" for Psalm 139:11; Westermann builds a wordplay-between-two-roots reading on this. (3) One root with two senses by paronomasia: Cassuto, Gunkel, and Rashi tie it to šā'ap and split "trample" from "snatch, snap at." The proposed link to šā'ap goes back to Umbreit, Dillmann, and Gesenius; the morphological objection (a hollow root against a III-aleph root) is answered by appeal to biconsonantal byforms, for which Andersen (ZAW 82, 1970) supplied the framework. The ancient versions diverge sharply, itself evidence that the verb was already opaque by the third century BCE: the Septuagint uses τηρέω at Genesis 3:15, ἐκτρίβω at Job 9:17, and καταπατέω at Psalm 138:11 LXX; Jerome's Vulgate splits Genesis 3:15 into conteret and insidiaberis, and his later iuxta Hebraeos Psalter reads operient ("cover") at Psalm 139:11, converging with Symmachus, the Targum, and the Peshitta on "cover" there. Per verse: Genesis 3:15 turns on whether the verb is uniform or a wordplay, and feeds the protoevangelium debate (Collins argues on syntactical grounds that the singular pronoun and verb point to an individual offspring; Paul reads a decisive crushing, using συντρίβω at Romans 16:20; Westermann and Barr deny predictive content). Job 9:17 is read "crush, sweep away" by nearly all, disagreeing only over whether the accompanying noun means "with a storm" (Hartley, Gordis, Habel, Dhorme) or "for a trifle" (Clines, Pope). Psalm 139:11 divides four ways: keep the text and read "overwhelm, cover" (Alter, Goldingay, Hossfeld-Zenger), emend to a verb meaning "cover, screen" (BDB, Kraus, Ewald), follow the Greek "trample," or derive "observe" from a separate root (Dahood, Blommerde); the Qumran scroll 11QPsa preserves the received consonants, weighing against emendation.

Where scholars disagree about shuph

Whether shuph (שׁוּף) is a single word used across all four occurrences or two or three unrelated words that happen to share the same spelling.

  • majorityOne root, with a core meaning in the crush, grind, and strike family, used throughout.; F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906), s.v.; Cornelis Van Dam, שׁוּף, in NIDOTTE (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 4:66-67
  • minorityTwo or three separate words: one meaning crush or trample, one a variant form of the verb meaning to snap at, and possibly a third meaning to cover.; Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, Johann J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1994-2001), s.v.; Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1984), 260
  • minorityOne root that carries two senses by wordplay, trample on one side and snatch or snap at on the other.; Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961), 1:161; Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, tr. Mark E. Biddle (Macon: Mercer UP, 1997), 20
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906), s.v. שׁוּףlexicon
  • Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, Johann J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, tr. M. E. J. Richardson (Leiden: Brill, 1994-2001), s.v. שׁוּףlexicon
  • Cornelis Van Dam, שׁוּף, in NIDOTTE, ed. Willem A. VanGemeren (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 4:66-67theological-dictionary
  • Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 197-98commentary
  • Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary, tr. J. J. Scullion (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1984), 260-61commentary
  • Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, tr. I. Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961), 1:161commentary
  • Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, WBC 1 (Waco: Word, 1987), 80commentary
  • David J. A. Clines, Job 1-20, WBC 17 (Dallas: Word, 1989), 218commentary
  • Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60-150, CC (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 510commentary
  • Mitchell Dahood, Psalms III: 101-150, AB 17A (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970), 284, 291-92commentary
  • John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, ICC, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1930), 80commentary
  • C. John Collins, A Syntactical Note (Genesis 3:15): Is the Woman's Seed Singular or Plural?, Tyndale Bulletin 48.1 (1997): 139-48article
  • Francis I. Andersen, Biconsonantal Byforms of Weak Hebrew Roots, ZAW 82 (1970): 270-75article

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of שׁוּף

qal imperfect 3ms

יְשׁוּפֵ, יְשׁוּפְ

Job 9:17, Psa 139:11, Gen 3:15

qal imperfect 2ms

תְּשׁוּפֶ

Gen 3:15