StrongerBible

avvah

אַוָּה

HebrewH0185desire, lust, ...

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 12:15Deu 12:20Deu 12:21Deu 18:61Sa 23:20Jer 2:24Hos 10:10
Word studyahv-VAHnoun

What avvah means

desire, wish: what someone wants, nearly always in the set phrase "the desire of your soul," meaning as much and as freely as you please.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

The word itself simply means wanting something. What makes it distinctive is where it turns up. Six of its seven appearances sit inside one set phrase, "the desire of your soul," and in almost all of them that phrase is not describing a private feeling. It is granting a free hand.

Deuteronomy uses it three times to open up ordinary meals. Once Israel had spread out too far to bring every animal to the one sanctuary, people could slaughter and eat at home, "with all the desire of your soul," which is to say as much as they liked and whenever they liked. The same phrase then licenses movement rather than appetite: a Levite may leave his hometown and come to the chosen place "with all the desire of his soul" (Deuteronomy 18:6), and the men of Ziph tell Saul to come down after David whenever he wishes (1 Samuel 23:20).

Two verses step outside the human wish. Jeremiah puts the phrase on a wild donkey in mating season, so that a word that usually means "whatever you feel like" becomes an urge the animal cannot be turned back from. And in Hosea, God speaks of his own desire as the reason he disciplines Israel: not an appetite but a settled will, closer to "when I choose."

This is the short member of a small family. The verb אָוָה is the act of wanting, and the longer noun תַּאֲוָה ranges much wider, from the craving that killed people in the wilderness to the longing of the faithful for God. This shorter noun settled into one phrase early and mostly stayed there.

Nuances

1abodily appetite: whatever a person feels like eating
Deu 12:15Deu 12:20Deu 12:21
1ba person's own wish: as much, or as often, as someone pleases
Deu 18:61Sa 23:20
1can animal's driving instinct: the urge of mating season
TranslatabilityPartial
Jer 2:24
1dGod's own will: the pleasure that decides what he does
Hos 10:10

What scholars say about avvah

אַוָּה is a feminine noun from the root אוה II ("to desire"), the shorter counterpart to the tā-preformative formation תַּאֲוָה. BDB, HALOT, and DCH agree on the gloss "desire, wish" and organize the seven attestations by desirer and object: bodily appetite in the Deuteronomic slaughter permission (Deut 12:15, 20, 21), human volition in Deut 18:6 and 1 Sam 23:20, animal instinct in Jer 2:24, and divine volition in Hos 10:10, where HALOT renders בְּאַוָּתִי "when I please." The phrase בְּכָל־אַוַּת נַפְשְׁךָ is a signature of Deuteronomy's centralization legislation, read by Tigay and the standard commentaries as a formula authorizing profane slaughter once the central sanctuary is distant; the same formula is then extended in Deut 18:6 to the Levite's freedom of movement. Comparative Semitists connect the root to a Central Semitic form reflected in Arabic hawā, though Klein leaves the derivation uncertain, and BDB/HALOT/DCH all posit multiple homonymous roots אוה. Hos 10:10 is text-critically insecure: the Septuagint's ἦλθεν presupposes a verbal form rather than בְּאַוָּתִי, and commentators divide over whether to retain the Masoretic reading.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. אַוָּהlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. אַוָּהlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. אַוָּהlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. אָוָהdictionary
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (1996)commentary
  • A. A. Macintosh, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Hosea, ICC (1997)commentary

All attested forms of אַוָּה

f s construct

אַוַּת

Deu 12:15, Deu 12:20, Deu 12:21, Deu 18:6, 1Sa 23:20, Jer 2:24

f s construct

אַוָּתִי

Hos 10:10