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record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and
cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deut. 30:19). The
plural of the word can represent “persons who are alive,” or living persons: “And he
stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed” (Num. 16:48).
C. Adjective.
(
, 2416), “alive; living.” This word has cognates in Ugaritic, Canaanite,
Phoenician, Punic, and Aramaic. It occurs about 481 times in biblical Hebrew and in all
periods.
The word
is used both as an adjective and as a noun. Used adjectivally it
modifies men, animals, and God, but never plants. In Gen. 2:7 the word used with the
noun
(“soul, person, being”) means a “living” person: “And the Lord God formed
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul.” The same two words are used in Gen. 1:21 but with a slightly
different meaning: “And God created … every living creature that moveth, which the
waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind.…” Here a living
(“creature”) is
an animal. Deut. 5:26 refers to God as the “living” God, distinguishing Him from the
lifeless gods/idols of the heathen.
In a related nuance
describes flesh (animal meat or human flesh) under the skin,
or “raw flesh.” In Lev. 13:10 one reads that leprosy involved seeing quick (alive), raw
(
) flesh: “And the priest shall see him: and, behold, if the rising be white in the skin,
and it have turned the hair white, and there be quick raw flesh in the rising.…” The same
words (
) are applied to dead, raw (skinned) animal flesh: “Give flesh to roast
for the priest; for he will not have [boiled] flesh of thee, but raw” (1 Sam. 2:15).
Applied to liquids,
means “running”; it is used metaphorically describing
something that moves: “And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well
of springing water” (Gen. 26:19). In Jer. 2:13 the
NASB
translates “living” waters, or
waters that give life (cf. Jer. 17:13; Zech. 14:8). The Song of Solomon uses the word in a
figure of speech describing one’s wife; she is “a well of living waters” (4:15). The
emphasis is not on the fact that the water flows but on its freshness; it is not stagnant, and
therefore is refreshing and pleasant when consumed.
LOAD
(
5
, 4853), “load; burden; tribute; delight.” The 43 occurrences of this
word are scattered throughout the periods of biblical Hebrew.
The word means that which is borne by a man, an ass, a mule, or a camel: “If thou see
the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him
…” (Exod. 23:5—the first occurrence). A “load” may be hung on a peg (Isa. 22:25). This
word is used figuratively of spiritual “loads” one is carrying: “For mine iniquities are
gone over mine head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me” (Ps. 38:4).
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means “burden” in the sense of something burdensome, a hardship. Moses
asked God: “… Wherefore have I not found favor in thy sight, that thou layest the burden
of all this people upon me?” (Num. 11:11).