to crush
ka.tat denotes forceful crushing, whether of objects, people in defeat, or weapons reshaped into tools.
The occurrences most often describe people, cities, gates, or land being violently crushed in conflict or devastation; they also describe objects broken into pieces and, in two parallel passages, swords and spears beaten into agricultural implements. Psalm 89:24 contains an attested form, but the supplied APB wording does not isolate its contribution.
Senses in use
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Crushing in defeat or devastation · dominant
This use concerns peoples and places overwhelmed by hostile action or ruin: in Deuteronomy 1:44 the Amorites pursue and crush the people, while in 2 Chronicles 15:6 the APB renders nation and city as crushing one another. The same destructive setting appears with a city gate amid ruin in Isaiah 24:12, mighty men in Jeremiah 46:5, and the land in Zechariah 11:6.
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Breaking objects into fragments · common
The term is used of destructive treatment of physical objects: in Deuteronomy 9:21 the calf is burned and ground until it becomes dust, and in 2 Chronicles 34:7 idols are crushed to pieces. Isaiah 30:14 compares the result to a smashed potter's vessel with no usable fragment, while Leviticus 22:24 includes a crushed animal among damaged offerings.
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Beating weapons into implements · occasional
In the matching scenes of Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3, the Piel sequential perfect form occurs in the clause where swords become plowshares and spears become pruning hooks. The APB renders this action as beating the weapons into agricultural tools within a vision where nations no longer learn war.
In the Anselm Project Bible: Across these verses, the APB commonly uses “crushed,” including people, idols, a gate, and a calf; it also uses “beat” for weapons made into tools and “smashed” for the potter's vessel. These are renderings of whole clauses in a translation, so they do not always isolate the lemma's precise English equivalent.