to hew
cha.tsav describes cutting or hewing stone, rock, and built features, with figurative uses for forceful cutting.
The term most often concerns the physical cutting and shaping of stone or rock for workers, cisterns, tombs, vats, pillars, and inscriptions. A smaller group of passages applies the action figuratively to prophetic judgment, the LORD's action against Rahab, and the voice of the LORD producing flames.
Senses in use
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Cutting and shaping stone or rock · dominant
Active participles identify hewers among construction workers in 1 Chronicles 22:15 and Ezra 3:7, while 1 Chronicles 22:2 places the action in preparing dressed stone for God's house. In Isaiah 22:16 the perfect and participial forms occur in the cutting of a tomb in the rock; in Proverbs 9:1 the action concerns seven pillars, and in Job 19:24 the Niphal imperfect concerns words being cut in rock.
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Figurative forceful cutting · occasional
In Hosea 6:5 the first-person Qal perfect is joined to action by the prophets and to words from the speaker's lips. Isaiah 51:9 applies the feminine Hiphil participle to the one who hewed Rahab, while Psalm 29:7 uses an active participle in the clause that the LORD's voice hews out flames of fire.
In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB presents the physical contexts with wording such as “hewers,” “cut dressed stone,” “hewn cisterns,” and “carving,” and it presents the figurative contexts as “hewn them,” “hewed Rahab,” and “hews out flames of fire.” These renderings show the verse-level presentation rather than fixed English equivalents for each form.