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Second, something gained by toil or labor is
&
"[He] gave them the lands of the
heathen: and they inherited the labor of the people [i.e., of the land of Palestine]” (Ps.
105:44).
Third,
means “troublesome work”; the emphasis is on the difficulty involved in
a task or work as troublesome and burdensome: “What profit hath a man of all his labor
[troublesome labor] which he taketh under the sun?” (Eccl. 1:3). All 17 appearances of
the word in Ecclesiastes bear this meaning.
Fourth, sometimes the emphasis shifts to the area of trouble so that an enterprise or
situation is exclusively troublesome or unfortunate: “… For God, said he, hath made me
forget all my toil, and all my father’s house” (Gen. 41:51—the first occurrence). In Judg.
10:16 we read that God “was grieved for the misery of Israel.”
Fifth,
can have an ethical connotation and is used as a word for sin. The wicked
man “travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood”
(Ps. 7:14; cf. Job 4:8).
Another noun
means “laborer, sufferer.” This word appears infrequently in
biblical Hebrew. In Prov. 16:26 the word refers to “laborer”: “He that laboreth, laboreth
for himself; for his mouth craveth it of him.” In Job 3:20
refers to a “sufferer”:
“Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery.…”
B. Verbs.
(
, 5998), “to labor.” This verb occurs 11 times in biblical Hebrew and
only in poetry.
*
appears several times in Ecclesiastes (2:11, 19, 21; 5:16. The verb
is also found in Ps. 127:1: “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build
it.…”
*
means “toiling.” This verb occurs only in a few instances in Ecclesiastes. One
occurrence is in Eccl. 3:9: “What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he
laboreth?”
LAMB (MALE)
(
*
, 3532), “lamb (male); kid.” The Akkadian cognate of this noun means
“lamb,” whereas the Arabic cognate signifies “a young ram.” The word occurs 107 times
in the Hebrew Old Testament, and especially in the Pentateuch.
The
is a “young lamb” which is nearly always used for sacrificial purposes. The
first usage in Exodus pertains to the Passover: “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a
male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats” (Exod. 12:5).
The word
, “kid,” is a synonym for
&
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb
[
], and the leopard shall lie down with the kid [ ]; and the calf and the young lion
and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them” (Isa. 11:6). The traditional
translation “lamb” leaves the gender uncertain. In Hebrew the word
is masculine,
whereas the
, “young ewe lamb,” is feminine; cf. “And Abraham set seven ewe
lambs of the flock by themselves” (Gen. 21:28).