H3806 H3806
To pound, crush, or bray in a mortar; to pulverize through repeated striking
This verb appears only in Proverbs 27:22, in a vivid saying about folly's persistence: 'Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle among grain, his folly will not depart from him.' The image is agricultural—crushing grain to remove hulls—applied impossibly to a person. The point is that folly is so integral to the fool's nature that even extreme treatment cannot separate him from it. Cognates in Aramaic and rabbinic Hebrew carry the same sense of pounding or crushing.
Senses
1. sense 1 — To pound or crush in a mortar, pulverizing grain or other substances. Proverbs uses this concrete action metaphorically: even if you could pound a fool like grain, you couldn't remove his folly. Spanish 'majaras' (you will pound/crush) and the transliterated forms preserve the grinding imagery. The proverb's hyperbole emphasizes folly's intractability—it's not like chaff that separates from grain with pounding, but intrinsic to the fool's being. 1×
AR["تَدُقُّ-"]·ben["তুমি-পেষণ-কর-"]·DE["[תכתוש]"]·EN["you-pound"]·FR["תכתוש"]·heb["תכתוש-"]·HI["कूटे-"]·ID["engkau-menumbuk"]·IT["voi-pound"]·jav["ngantemi"]·KO["네가-찧어도"]·PT["esmagares-"]·RU["истолчёшь-"]·ES["majaras-"]·SW["utamponda-"]·TR["dövseydin-"]·urd["کوٹے"]
Related Senses
G0846 1. third-person pronoun reference (5552×)H???? 1. (4670×)H6213a 1. do, perform, act (2383×)G4160 1. do, act, perform (473×)H5221 1. Hifil: to strike in battle, smite enemies (362×)H0899b 1. garment, article of clothing (216×)H6213a 2. make, construct, fabricate (148×)H3772 1. cut a covenant / make a pact (97×)H5060 1. touch physically (Qal) (96×)H3615 1. complete a task (Piel) (85×)H3772 2. cut off / destroy (Hifil causative) (81×)H3920 1. capture, seize (Qal) (76×)H???? 12. (76×)H3772 3. be cut off / be eliminated (Niphal) (74×)H6213a 3. be done, be made (Niphal) (73×)G4160 2. make, construct, create (62×)H3847 1. Qal: put on, wear (60×)H8210 1. pour out (liquid/libation) (59×)G2440 1. garment or clothing (general) (54×)H4191 4. kill / put to death (Hifil causative) (50×)
BDB / Lexicon Reference
† [כָּתַשׁ] vb. pound, pound fine, bray (NH id.; Aramaic כְּתַשׁ; Syriac ܟܬܰܫ is strive, contend; Zinj. כתש break in pieces, shatter, DHMSendsch. 58);— Qal Impf. אִם־תִּכְתּוֹשׁ אֶת־הָאֱוִיל בַּמַּכְתֵּשׁ Pr 27:22 if thou shouldest bray the fool in the mortar.