to lose vitality and waste away: to wither, droop, and grow feeble
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
At its heart this word pictures something drooping and drying out, the way a plant wilts once its water is gone. The Bible stretches that single image across three kinds of subject: fields and vines that shrivel in a drought, people whose strength drains away until they can barely stand, and whole lands or cities pictured as a person sinking into ruin.
It keeps close company with the word for mourning (אבל). The two sound alike and are paired again and again, most famously in the refrain that the earth "mourns and languishes." Where mourning names the sorrow, this word names the physical sagging that goes with it: the color draining out of things, the vitality gone.
So the same verb can describe a fig tree that withers, a mother of many children who grows feeble, and a nation whose gates droop to the ground in defeat. The common thread is not the cause but the effect: whatever once stood green and strong is now limp and spent.
Nuances
1a(of plants, crops, and fertile regions) to wither and dry up
TranslatabilityDirect
Isa 16:8Isa 24:7Jol 1:10Jol 1:12Nam 1:4 (2×)
1b(of people, or of a land or city pictured as a person) to grow feeble, waste away, and languish
Whether אֲמֻלָה in Ezekiel 16:30 describes a weak, faint heart (from this verb, "to languish") or, on the strength of an Akkadian parallel, an enraged one.
majorityA feeble or faint heart, taking the form from the ordinary verb "to languish."; HALOT, s.v. אמל; BDB, s.v. אמל
minority"How enraged you are," reading the clause against the Akkadian idiom libbātu malû, to be full of rage.; Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20 (Anchor Bible 22, 1983)
the same verb also covers a mother losing her strength and a city sinking in defeat, uses a plant word cannot reach1Sa 2:5Lam 2:8
Both
for crops and fields the two line up exactly, drooping and drying upJol 1:12Isa 16:8
Only wither
"wither" narrows the image to a dried-out plant, missing the human and civic languishing the Hebrew includes
“waste away”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“grow feeble”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“fade”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How amal differs from similar Hebrew words
אבלnames the mourning and lament itself, the grief; this word names the physical drooping and wasting that goes with it, and the two are constantly paired.
נבלpictures a leaf or flower falling and fading as it drops off; this word is the drooping and draining of vitality more broadly, in people and lands as well as plants.
יבשׁmeans simply to dry up, all the moisture gone; this word adds the sense of sagging and losing strength, not only drying out.
קמלa rarer word for shriveling and rotting away; this word is the wider, commoner term for drooping and wasting.
is the ordinary word for growing things drying out: vines, fields, orchards, and the fresh oil of the harvest all shrivel under this verb, which never happens with the other wordIsa 16:8Isa 24:7Jol 1:10Jol 1:12Nam 1:4
travels as a set phrase with the verb for mourning, so the land is repeatedly said to mourn and droop in the same breath, a pairing the other word never joinsIsa 24:4Isa 33:9Jer 14:2Hos 4:3
can be said of a city's own stonework, with rampart and wall sagging together as though the defenses themselves had lost heartLam 2:8
Both
both describe a whole people drained of life, not struck down in one blow but worn away until little is leftJer 14:2Isa 24:4Psa 79:8
both can be said of one person whose strength gives out under long trouble, which is why translators reach for "languish" or "grow feeble" with either word1Sa 2:5Jer 15:9Isa 38:14Psa 142:6
both stand in the same oracle about Egypt, one for the river thinning away and the other for the fishermen who lose heart when their catch is goneIsa 19:8Isa 19:6
keeps a literal picture of something dangling slack, whether miners swaying on ropes down a shaft or the useless legs of a lame manJob 28:4Pro 26:7
describes a water level dropping, the channels of the Nile thinning away before they finally run dryIsa 19:6
carries the note of being stripped of goods and standing, which is why English Bibles here say "impoverished" or "brought low"; raiders leave Israel with nothing, and Jacob's wealth thins until his body itself is leanJdg 6:6Isa 17:4
amal in the other biblical languages
μαραίνωGreek“to fade”the Greek for fading and withering like a flower in the heat, the closest New Testament picture of vitality draining away.
ἀσθενέωGreek“be weak: ill”the Greek for being weak or sickly, matching this word where it describes people whose strength fails, though it lacks the plant imagery.
What scholars say about amal
The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat אמל as a single verb, "to languish, wither, waste away," attested almost entirely in the intensive passive stems and applied to vegetation, persons, and personified land alike. Its recurring pairing with אבל "to mourn" belongs to the prophetic "earth mourns" motif studied by Katherine Hayes, where the assonance of the two roots reinforces a picture of the land drooping in sympathetic desolation. The one notable crux is Ezekiel 16:30, where אֲמֻלָה לִבָּתֵךְ is read either as a feeble heart, the traditional derivation from this verb, or, following the Akkadian idiom libbātu malû, as an expression of rage (Greenberg).
Sources
HALOT, s.v. אמלlexicon
BDB, s.v. אמלlexicon
DCH, s.v. אמלlexicon
Katherine M. Hayes, The Earth Mourns: Prophetic Metaphor from Joel to Jeremiah (SBL Academia Biblica 8, 2002)monograph