כָּתַת kâthath — to bruise or violently strike
Translated in the KJV as beat (down, to pieces), break in pieces, crushed, destroy, discomfit, smite, stamp. l.
a primitive root; to bruise or violently strike.
kâthath in each stem
Qal (Pa'al)
Participle (passive) 2Wayyiqtol 1Perfect (qatal) 1Imperative 1
Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut; neither shall ye make any offering thereof in your land.
And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.
But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
Pi'el
Sequential perfect (weqatal) 3Perfect (qatal) 2
He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Hoph'al
Imperfect (yiqtol) 4
They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.
In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction.
Wherefore have I seen them dismayed and turned away back? and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: for fear was round about, saith the Lord.
Hiph'il
Wayyiqtol 2
Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah.
And the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah.
Pu'al
Perfect (qatal) 1
And nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city: for God did vex them with all adversity.
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 ›