Bible word study

Karath (Strong’s H3772): Meaning in the Bible

Karath (כָּרַת) is the Hebrew word numbered H3772 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as to cut (off, down or asunder); by implication, to destroy or consume; specifically, to covenant (i.e. make an alliance or bargain, originally by cutting flesh and passing between the pieces). In the King James Bible it is translated be chewed, be con-(feder-) ate, covenant, cut (down, off).

• Original wordכָּרַת
• Transliterationkârath
• Pronunciationkaw-rath'
• Part of speechverb (v)
• Strong’s numberH3772
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. a primitive root;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Karath appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Karath (H3772) stands behind 288 English renderings in 280 verses across 33 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Jeremiah (27), Leviticus (20), Ezekiel (19).

How the King James Bible renders Karath, by count

• off145 of 288 (50 percent)
• made51 of 288 (18 percent)
• make31 of 288 (11 percent)
• down23 of 288 (8 percent)
• cut8 of 288 (3 percent)
• fail6 of 288 (2 percent)

Three places to read Karath

• Genesis 9:11 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
• 1 Samuel 17:51 Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled.
• Isaiah 18:5 For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.

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 Karath 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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