to build
ba.nah describes constructing houses, cities, altars, and other built structures, and in promises of making a house for someone.
The term most often denotes the construction of tangible places and structures: houses, city sites, fortified places, altars, and sanctuary buildings. In a smaller set of promise statements, it describes making a “house” for a person, where the surrounding clauses do not describe physical construction.
Senses in use
-
Constructing places and structures · dominant
The Qal forms describe making built structures in varied settings: Solomon builds the house for the LORD in 1 Kings 6:1, Jeroboam builds Shechem and Peniel in 1 Kings 12:25, and Elijah builds an altar from stones in 1 Kings 18:32. Infinitive forms likewise frame intended construction of a house or sanctuary in 1 Chronicles 22:6 and 1 Chronicles 28:10; in 1 Kings 6:7 the Niphal infinitive forms describe the house while it was being built.
-
Making a house for a person in a promise · rare
In 1 Chronicles 17:10, the clause says that the LORD will build a house for David, while the same passage separately speaks of building a house for the LORD in 1 Chronicles 17:12. Similarly, 2 Samuel 7:27 reports the disclosed statement, “I will build you a house,” and 1 Kings 11:38 joins the promise of a faithful house to the comparison “as I built for David”; these clauses do not specify construction materials or a site.
In the Anselm Project Bible: Across the sampled verses, the APB commonly presents the construction clauses with “built,” “build,” or “being built,” and calls the participial workers “builders” in 2 Chronicles 34:11. In promise clauses it also uses “build... a house,”.