הָלַם hâlam — to strike down
Translated in the KJV as beat, break, overcome, smite.
a primitive root; to strike down; by implication, to hammer, stamp, conquer, disband.
hâlam in each stem
Qal (Pa'al)
Perfect (qatal) 4Imperfect (yiqtol) 2Participle (passive) 1Participle (active) 1
Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the pransings, the pransings of their mighty ones.
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.
What the stems mean
A Hebrew verb is its root letters set into a pattern. The pattern — the binyan — is the grammar's way of saying three things at once: whether the action is simple, intensive or causative, and whether its subject is active, passive or reflexive. That is why one Hebrew word can need six English ones. All seven binyanim, explained ›