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TR: nakah → patassō (Striking, Smiting, Plague-Blow)

The Chain

Hebrew OT                   LXX (Greek OT)              Greek NT
───────────                 ───────────────             ────────
נָכָה (nâkâh)            →  πατάσσω (patássō)        →  πατάσσω (patássō)
H5221, 460x in OT           co-occ 312x / PMI 5.54      G3960, 10x in NT
"to strike, smite"          primary Greek equivalent     "to strike, smite"

OT Usage (Hebrew)

Strong's Word Occurrences Primary Meaning
H5221 נָכָה (nâkâh) 460 to strike / smite (battle, divine plague, prophetic sign, judicial blow, inner conscience)
H4347 מַכָּה (makkâh) 48 a blow, wound, plague (cognate noun — the result of nakah)
H5062 נָגַף (nâgaph) 49 to strike with plague / defeat (narrower verb in the same field)

Key OT passages: - Exo 12:29 — "the LORD smote (nakah) all the firstborn in the land of Egypt" - Zech 13:7 — "smite (nakah) the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered" - Isa 53:4 — "we did esteem him stricken, smitten (nakah) of God" - 2 Kgs 2:8 — Elijah "smote (nakah) the waters, and they were divided"

Canonical study: H5221-nakah.md

LXX Bridge

Hebrew Greek Translation Co-occ Score Notes
nakah (H5221) πατάσσω (G3960) 312 31.82 Primary — the workhorse equivalent
nakah (H5221) τύπτω (G5180) 26 17.38 Ordinary hitting / slapping contexts
nakah (H5221) πληγή (G4127) 25 13.81 Noun "stroke/wound" — the result of the blow
nakah (H5221) πλήσσω (G4141) 13 13.30 Poetic strike
nakah (H5221) θανατόω (G2289) 26 10.90 "Put to death" when nakah context implies killing
nakah (H5221) μαστιγόω (G3146) 8 10.67 For flogging / stripes contexts

Reverse — what Hebrew does patassō render?

Hebrew Word Co-occ Notes
H5221 נָכָה (nakah) 312 Overwhelmingly primary — nakah supplies nearly all of patassō's LXX uses
H4347 מַכָּה (makkah) 15 The cognate noun of nakah, rendered verbally
H5062 נָגַף (nagaph) 13 Adjacent strike-verb occasionally collapsed into patassō

Semantic shift in translation: Virtually none. Patassō preserves nakah's full range: battlefield smiting, divine plague, striking of objects (rock, water, dust), prophetic sign-acts, and the Messianic smitten-shepherd motif. The LXX's choice of patassō is one of the cleanest Hebrew-to-Greek verb bridges in the OT.

NT Usage (Greek)

Strong's Word Occurrences Primary Meaning
G3960 πατάσσω (patassō) 10 to strike, smite (a blow, judicial or supernatural)
G4127 πληγή (plēgē) 22 a stroke / wound / plague (the noun) — see G4127-plege.md
G5180 τύπτω (typtō) 13 to hit, beat

Key NT passages (patassō): - Matt 26:31 — "for it is written, I will smite (patassō) the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad" [quoting Zech 13:7] - Mark 14:27 — "it is written, I will smite (patassō) the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered" [quoting Zech 13:7] - Matt 26:51 — at Gethsemane: "struck (patassō) a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear" - Acts 12:7 — "the angel of the Lord... smote (patassō) Peter on the side" [awakening blow] - Acts 12:23 — "the angel of the Lord smote (patassō) him [Herod], because he gave not God the glory" [divine judgment-blow — classic OT nakah idiom] - Rev 11:6 — the two witnesses "have power... to smite (patassō) the earth with all plagues" [Exodus-plague echo] - Rev 19:15 — "with it he should smite (patassō) the nations" [Messianic judgment — echoes Isa 11:4 LXX]

Direct OT→NT Quotations

NT Verse Quotes OT Shared Word Significance
Matt 26:31 Zech 13:7 nakah (H5221) → patassō (G3960) Jesus applies the smitten-shepherd oracle to himself at the Last Supper
Mark 14:27 Zech 13:7 nakah → patassō Parallel to Matt 26:31 — same verb in LXX and NT
Rev 19:15 (cf.) Isa 11:4 nakah (LXX patassō) The Messianic "smite the earth" motif
Rev 11:6 (echoing) Exo 7–12 plague corpus nakah → patassō The plague-strike vocabulary of the Exodus transferred to eschatological judgment

Continuity and Shifts

What stays the same across testaments: - The full semantic breadth of nakah survives: physical blow, divine plague, prophetic sign, judicial strike. Patassō carries all four into the NT. - The divine-judgment blow idiom ("the LORD smote / the angel of the Lord smote") passes through unchanged — Acts 12:23 (Herod) reads as a pure OT-style nakah scene in Greek. - The Messianic smitten-shepherd in Zech 13:7 is quoted verbatim in Matt 26:31 / Mark 14:27, making this one of the most important single-verb OT→NT bridges in the Passion narrative.

What shifts: - NT usage is narrower in frequency (10 occurrences vs. 460) — the NT simply has less battlefield and covenant-curse narrative to describe. - The NT leans toward supernatural / eschatological striking: angelic blows (Acts 12:7, 12:23), the two witnesses (Rev 11:6), the Messianic warrior (Rev 19:15). Only Matt 26:51 / Luke 22:49–50 use patassō for ordinary human striking (Peter's sword in Gethsemane). - The Exodus-plague vocabulary resurfaces eschatologically in Revelation — patassō + plēgē echoes how nakah + makkah functioned in Exodus 7–12.

Generated from: gather_trace_data.py, search_strongs.py (--lxx-map, --hebrew-source, --lookup, --lexicon), kjv.txt Last updated: 2026-04-18