To chastise , literally (with blows) or figuratively (with words); hence, to instruct
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Yasar is a Hebrew verb for disciplining, correcting, instructing, admonishing, or chastening. Its contexts range from God's covenant formation to parental guidance, prophetic correction, trained skill, punishment, and abusive royal threats.
Reader summary
Full entry for יָסַר (H3256) · Open the biblical lexicon
Yasar is a Hebrew verb for disciplining, correcting, instructing, admonishing, or chastening. Its contexts range from God's covenant formation to parental guidance, prophetic correction, trained skill, punishment, and abusive royal threats.
The BSB source-word alignment has 43 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include scourged (4), . . . (2), Discipline (2), will scourge (2), Yet I will discipline you (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Leviticus 26:18. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (9), Jeremiah (7), Deuteronomy (5), Proverbs (5).
Yasar is a Hebrew verb for disciplining, correcting, instructing, admonishing, or chastening. Its contexts range from God's covenant formation to parental guidance, prophetic correction, trained skill, punishment, and abusive royal threats. Deuteronomy compares the Lord's wilderness discipline with a father's formation of a son, while Jeremiah asks to be corrected with justice rather than consuming anger.
Proverbs urges timely discipline because hope remains, but the verse does not prescribe one method or authorize harm. Rehoboam's boast that he will scourge the people with scorpions uses the same lexical field within a narrative of oppressive folly and kingdom division. The word therefore cannot make every painful act loving, every punishment just, or every authority figure God's representative.
Biblical discipline seeks truth, wisdom, justice, repentance, maturity, and life. Abuse seeks control through fear, injury, humiliation, isolation, or retaliation. Teachers and caregivers must reject physical, sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse, respect developmental needs and disability, follow safeguarding duties, and never tell a harmed person that enduring mistreatment is God's discipline.
Yasar covers formation, correction, instruction, punishment, and chastening, so the agent, method, justice, purpose, and fruit distinguish faithful discipline from oppressive harm.
So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.
Moses interprets wilderness dependence as the Lord's covenant formation of Israel, tied to remembrance, obedience, and humble reliance on God.
Correct me, O Lord, but only with justice—not in Your anger, or You will bring me to nothing.
Jeremiah asks for necessary correction governed by justice and pleads against wrath that would consume him, preserving both accountability and creaturely frailty.
Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be party to his death.
The proverb urges hopeful, timely formation rather than negligent surrender, without naming a single technique or suspending wider commands against harm.
And spoke to them as the young men had advised, saying, “Whereas my father made your yoke heavy, I will add to your yoke. Whereas my father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.”
Rehoboam's threat intensifies coercive punishment after he rejects elder counsel, and the narrative presents it as folly that fractures the kingdom.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Discipline that corrects through painful consequence, moving from physical punishment toward moral instruction and reformation.
Discipline that corrects through painful consequence, moving from physical punishment toward moral instruction and reformation.
to chastise, literally (with blows) or figuratively (with words); hence, to instruct BDB: discipline Usage: bind, chasten, chastise, correct, instruct, punish, reform, reprove, sore, teach.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 43 lexical occurrence verses.
יָסַר is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Expresses corrective covenant judgment.Hosea 10:9-15
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Biblical discipline aims at formation, not domination. Deuteronomy remembers God's fatherly training through dependence, provision, humility, and covenant instruction. Jeremiah asks to be corrected in justice, not destroyed in anger. Proverbs urges caregivers not to abandon a child while hope remains, yet wisdom must be read with the whole canon's protection of the weak and rejection of uncontrolled anger.
First Kings gives a stark counterexample: Rehoboam calls escalating pain leadership, ignores experienced counsel, and divides the kingdom. Churches and families must not label injury, terror, humiliation, isolation, sexual violation, or retaliatory control as godly discipline. Correction should be proportionate, truthful, developmentally appropriate, open to accountability, and directed toward learning and restoration.
It must honor disability, trauma, and the child's or adult's dignity. When abuse is disclosed, the response is protection, careful listening, qualified support, and required reporting, not forced forgiveness or silence. God's just correction cannot be used as cover for human cruelty.
Jer.10.24
The verb spans instruction, correction, training, chastening, and punitive action. The broad range means the term itself does not certify that a method is just, loving, effective, or divinely authorized.
Hebrews 12 interprets God's fatherly discipline through sonship, holiness, endurance, and peaceful fruit, while Ephesians 6 forbids parental provocation. These passages support formative care but do not transfer divine prerogative to harmful human methods.