Basic HTML Version
NIV
); “appointed time” (
NASB
); “appointed feast” (
RSV
,
NASB
); “set time” (
RSV
,
NASB
,
NIV
).
TO CONSUME
A. Verb.
(
, 3615), “to cease, be finished, perish, be completed.” This verb occurs in
most Semitic languages and in all periods. In Hebrew, it occurs both in the Bible (about
210 times) and in post-biblical literature. The word does not appear in biblical Aramaic.
Basically, the word means “to cease or stop.”
may refer to the “end” of a
process or action, such as the cessation of God’s creating the universe: “And on the
seventh day God ended his work which he had made …” (Gen. 2:2—the first occurrence
of the word). The word can also refer to the “disappearance” of something: “And the
water was
in the bottle …” (Gen. 21:15). Finally,
can be used of “coming to
an end” or “the process of ending”: “The barrel of meal shall not waste” (1 Kings 17:14).
can have the more positive connotation of “successfully completing”
something. First Kings 6:38 says that the house of the Lord was “finished throughout all
the parts thereof, and according to all [its plans].” In this same sense, the word of the
Lord “is fulfilled”: “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the
Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus
king of Persia, that he made a proclamation …” (Ezra 1:1).
sometimes means “making a firm decision.” David tells Jonathan that if Saul is
very angry, “be sure that evil is determined by him” (1 Sam. 20:7).
Negatively, “to complete” something may mean “to make it vanish” or “go away.”
is used in this sense in Deut. 32:23, when God says: “I will heap mischiefs upon
them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.” In other words, His arrows will “vanish”
from His possession. This nuance is used especially of clouds: “As the cloud is consumed
and vanisheth away …” (Job 7:9). Another negative nuance is to “destroy” something or
someone: “the famine shall consume the land” (Gen. 41:30). Along this same line is the
use of
in Isa. 1:28: “… They that forsake the Lord shall be consumed”; here,
however, the verb is a synonym for “dying” or “perishing.” One’s sight may also
“vanish” and one may go blind: “But the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not
escape …” (Job 11:20). An altogether different emphasis appears when one’s heart
comes “to an end” or “stops within”: “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts
of the Lord” (Ps. 84:2); the psalmist probably meant that his desire for God’s presence
was so intense that nothing else had any meaning for him—he “died” to be there.
B. Noun.
(
, 3617), “consumption; complete annihilation.”
appears 15 times;
one occurrence is Neh. 9:31: “Nevertheless for thy great mercies’ sake thou didst not
utterly consume them, nor forsake them;.…”
TO BE CONSUMED
A. Verb.
(
, 8552), “to be complete, finished, perfect, spent, sound, used up, have
integrity.” Found in both ancient and modern Hebrew, this word also exists in ancient