Original Word: סְבָךְ
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: cbak
Pronunciation: seh-bahk
Phonetic Spelling: (seb-awk')
NASB: thickets, thicket
Word Origin: [from H5440 (סָבַך - tangled), a copse]

1. thick(-et)

thicket

From cabak, a copse -- thick(-et).

see HEBREW cabak

Word Origin
from sabak
Definition
a thicket
NASB Translation
thicket (1), thickets (2).

סְבַךְ noun [masculine] thicket; — absolute בַּסְּבַךְ (נֶאֱחַז) Genesis 22:13 (so Ginsb; Baer בַּסֲבַךְ, van d. H. כַּסְּבָךְ) a ram caught in the thicket by its horns; plural construct ִ˜סבְכֵי הַיַּעַר Isaiah 9:17 thickets of the forest, Isaiah 10:34.

Meaning and Imagery

סְבָךְ portrays a dense “thicket,” an interwoven mass of branches so tightly tangled that it both conceals and restrains. The idea of interlacing woodlands or brush gives the word its evocative power: an object firmly caught, a pathway blocked, a blaze explosively fed, or a proud height humbled.

Occurrences Overview

1. Genesis 22:13 – a ram caught “in a thicket by its horns.”
2. Psalm 74:5 – carpenters brandishing axes “in a thicket of trees.”
3. Isaiah 9:18 – wickedness burning “like a fire…it consumes briers and thorns; it kindles the thickets of the forest.”
4. Isaiah 10:34 – Lebanon’s lofty trees “will fall by the Mighty One” and “the thickets of the forest will be cut down.”

Although few, these occurrences trace a thematic arc from substitutionary provision, through desecration, to comprehensive judgment.

Genesis 22:13 – Sacrificial Substitution

“Then Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram caught in a thicket by its horns; so he went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son” (Genesis 22:13).

The thicket becomes the providential snare by which God supplies a substitute for Isaac. It holds the sacrificial animal fast, emphasizing that the provision is entirely of God, found not by human effort but by divine orchestration. The entangling branches echo Abraham’s earlier words, “God Himself will provide the lamb” (Genesis 22:8). The scene prefigures the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ: the innocent caught in the place of the guilty, secured until the appointed moment.

Psalm 74:5 – Desecration amid the Thicket

In Asaph’s lament over a ravaged sanctuary, craftsmen swing axes “like men wielding axes in a thicket of trees” (Psalm 74:5). The psalmist likens the temple-desecrating invaders to woodsmen hacking their way through stubborn brush. The image conveys reckless destruction of what was once sacred order, contrasting sharply with Genesis 22 where the thicket served redemptive purpose. Here it is the backdrop for sacrilege, underscoring how sin transposes creation’s gifts into instruments of profanation.

Isaiah’s Twin Thickets – Consuming Fire and Humbling Axe

Isaiah employs סְבָךְ twice in successive chapters to portray divine judgment.

Isaiah 9:18: “For wickedness burns like a fire… it kindles the thickets of the forest, so that they roll upward in a column of smoke”. The prophet pictures unrepentant iniquity as a self-igniting blaze. Thickets, once agents of providence and symbols of human violence, now become fuel. The interwoven branches represent collective societal sin—dense, self-feeding, and ultimately incandescent under the heat of God’s wrath.

Isaiah 10:34: “He will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One”. The same tangled growth that once flamed is here felled. Assyria’s arrogance—likened to Lebanon’s proud cedars—faces the decisive swing of YHWH’s axe. What humankind cannot unravel, the Lord can level in an instant. The verse answers Psalm 74’s mockery: human axes desecrated the temple, but the divine Axe humbles empires.

Symbolism in Forest Judgment

The thicket motif in Isaiah bridges two kinds of judgment: internal (sin consuming a people from within) and external (God striking down oppressive power). Together they declare that no complexity of wickedness is immune to God’s purifying fire or uncompromising axe.

Theological Reflections

1. Providence: The same God who ordains a ram’s horn to be tangled for salvation also orchestrates judgment against unrepentant pride.
2. Substitution and Sacrifice: The initial use in Genesis foreshadows Christ, “the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 5:12), ensnared not by chance but by divine purpose.
3. Judgment: Isaiah’s imagery warns that sin, if unconfessed, matures into conflagration. The unhewn mass of human rebellion must either burn or be cut down.
4. Sovereignty: From patriarchal altar to prophetic forest, סְבָךְ testifies that God commands both minutiae and empires, using natural imagery to reveal spiritual realities.

Practical Ministry Applications

• Intercessory Prayer: As Abraham lifted his eyes to see God’s provision, believers are encouraged to watch for unexpected mercies in tangled circumstances.
• Preaching on Repentance: Isaiah’s burning thicket offers vivid language for sermons calling wayward hearts to awareness of sin’s self-destructive nature.
• Counseling: The entrapment motif speaks to those “caught” in sin (Galatians 6:1). Restoration involves leading souls from the snare to the altar of substitutionary grace.
• Worship: Psalm 74 prompts lament for desecrated “temples” in culture and church, but Isaiah 10 reassures that the Mighty One still wields the final axe.

Christological Foreshadowing

Just as the thicket restrained the ram for Isaac’s sake, the crown of thorns encircled Jesus’ brow, intertwining the imagery of tangled branches, substitution, and sacrifice. The thicket points forward to Calvary where the true substitute is provided, once for all.

Contemporary Application

Modern life teems with “thickets” of complexity—ethical, relational, cultural. Scripture’s fourfold use of סְבָךְ assures the believer that:
• God can trap provision within complication.
• Sinful chaos invites divine lament and confrontation.
• Persistent rebellion will eventually ignite into devastation.
• Ultimate sovereignty rests in the hands of the One who uproots every proud forest and plants the tree of life.

As such, סְבָךְ, though a minor word in Hebrew vocabulary, becomes a rich emblem of God’s providence, humanity’s corruption, and the righteous certainty of divine intervention.

בְּסִֽבְכֵ֣י בִּֽסֲבָךְ־ בַּסְּבַ֖ךְ בסבך בסבך־ בסבכי סִֽבְכֵ֥י סבכי bas·sə·ḇaḵ bassəḇaḵ basseVach bə·siḇ·ḵê bəsiḇḵê besivChei bi·să·ḇāḵ- bisăḇāḵ- bisavoch siḇ·ḵê siḇḵê sivCheiInterlinear Greek • Interlinear Hebrew • Strong's Numbers • Englishman's Greek Concordance • Englishman's Hebrew Concordance • Parallel Texts