ʿāśāh

Semantic range

1. 1to make or manufacture from materials at hand
2. 2to do, act, accomplish
3. 3to appoint, institute

The workaday verb for making — used of God, of craftsmen, and of anyone who does anything. Genesis 1 alternates ʿāśāh with bārāʾ freely (compare 1:26 "let us make" with 1:27 "God created"), which is one reason the chapter resists being read as a treatise on metaphysical origins. Where bārāʾ is reserved and stately, ʿāśāh is the language of a workshop.

The alternation is worth watching in a study of the Creation accounts, because Abraham 4 consistently pushes the whole vocabulary toward organisation, and the Hebrew is hospitable to that reading.

See also

• בָּרָאbārāʾ
• יָצַרyāṣar