Basic HTML Version
[
] words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth” (Eccl.
12:10), words that were both true and aesthetically pleasing. A good wife works with
“hands of delight,” or hands which delight in her work because of her love for her family;
“she seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly [in delight] with her hands” (Prov.
31:13).
)
can mean not simply what one takes pleasure in or what gives someone
delight but one’s wish or desire: “Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath
made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my
salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow” (2 Sam. 23:5). “To do
one’s desire” is to grant a request (1 Kings 5:8). “Stones of desire” are precious stones
(Isa. 54:12).
Third,
sometimes represents one’s affairs as that in which one takes delight:
“… There is … a time to every purpose [literally, delight] under the heaven” (Eccl. 3:1).
In Isa. 58:13 the first occurrence of this word means “pleasure” or “delight,” while the
last occurrence indicates an affair or matter in which one delights: “If thou turn away thy
foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a
delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.”
Finally, in one passage this word means “affair” in the sense of a “thing” or
“situation”: “If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment
and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter [
NASB
“sight”] …” (Eccl. 5:8).
B. Verb.
(
0!
, 2654), “to take pleasure in, take care of, desire, delight in, have
delight in.” This verb, which occurs 72 times in biblical Hebrew has cognates in Arabic,
Phoenician, Syriac, and Arabic.
)
means “to delight in” in 2 Sam. 15:26: “But if
he thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth
good unto him.”
C. Adjective.
(
0!
, 2655), “delighting in, having pleasure in.” This adjective appears 12
times in biblical Hebrew. The word is found in Ps. 35:27: “Let the Lord be magnified,
which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.”
TO PLOW
A. Verb.
(
, 2790), “to plow, engrave, work in metals.” This word occurs in
ancient Ugaritic, as well as in modern Hebrew where it has the primary sense of “to
plow.” It is found approximately 50 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. A fitting word
for the agricultural nature of Israelite culture,
is frequently used of “plowing” a
field, usually with animals such as oxen (1 Kings 19:19). The imagery of cutting up or
tearing up a field with a plow easily lent itself to the figurative use of the word to mean
mistreatment by others: “The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their
furrows” (Ps. 129:3). The word is used to express the plotting of evil against a friend in
Prov. 3:29: “Devise not evil against thy neighbor, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee
[literally, “do not plow evil”].”