Bible word study

Bara (Strong’s H1254): Meaning in the Bible

Bara (בָּרָא) is the Hebrew word numbered H1254 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as (absolutely) to create; (qualified) to cut down (a wood), select, feed (as formative processes). In the King James Bible it is translated choose, create (creator), cut down, dispatch, do.

• Original wordבָּרָא
• Transliterationbârâʼ
• Pronunciationbaw-raw'
• Part of speechverb (v)
• Strong’s numberH1254
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. a primitive root;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Bara appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Bara (H1254) stands behind 54 English renderings in 46 verses across 13 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Isaiah (21), Genesis (11), Psalms (6).

How the King James Bible renders Bara, by count

• created33 of 54 (61 percent)
• create8 of 54 (15 percent)
• creator3 of 54 (6 percent)
• choose2 of 54 (4 percent)
• down2 of 54 (4 percent)
• createth1 of 54 (2 percent)

Three places to read Bara

• Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
• Psalms 89:12 The north and the south thou hast created them: Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name.
• Isaiah 45:8 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Bara in the original Hebrew lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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