a dealing: what one person does to another, or the matching return that deed earns; most often a deserved recompense.
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
The word comes from a root about dealing fully with someone, carrying an action through to the return it calls for. So the noun faces two directions at once: the deed a person does, and the payback that deed brings back.
Most often it names the payback, the deserved return that lands on the one who acted. In the prophets this is usually judgment, God repaying his enemies what their conduct has earned. But the same word can point the other way, to good actively dealt to a person (the benefits God gives), or simply to the deed itself, the dealing a person's own hands are answerable for.
One term holds good and evil together. Because a dealing draws a matching dealing, the single word covers both the kindness shown and the punishment deserved, and only the surrounding verse tells you which is meant.
Nuances
1arecompense, requital: the deserved return for a person's conduct, most often the punishment their deeds bring back on them.
The Hebrew word is even-handed between good and ill: it names benefits given as readily as punishment deserved, where English "recompense" leans toward payment for a wrong.Psa 103:2Psa 94:2
Both
Both name a return that matches what was done and is given back to the one who did it.Oba 1:15Pro 12:14
Only recompense
In English "recompense" is a formal, mostly legal or financial term suggesting compensation or reimbursement; the Hebrew is the ordinary language of one person dealing with another.
The Hebrew is neutral about good or ill, so it delivers deserved punishment just as often as good.Psa 28:4Isa 3:11
Both
Both can name what a person's own conduct brings back on them.Pro 12:14
Only reward
In modern English "reward" implies a prize or something earned by merit and gladly received; the Hebrew carries no such warmth and is just as often a threat.
Here the word points to good actively dealt out by God to a person, not merely a standing advantage.Psa 103:22Ch 32:25
Both
Both name a good that comes to someone.Psa 103:2
Only benefit
In English "benefit" is a broad, often impersonal word for any advantage or perk; the Hebrew names good deliberately done by one party for another.
“desert”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“deed”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How gemul differs from similar Hebrew words
שִׁלּוּםrecompense seen as full payment or the settling of accounts, from the verb for making whole; this word stresses instead the return matching the deed, not the clearing of a debt.
שָׂכָרthe wage earned for work or service, pay agreed in advance; this word is the return a deed draws back on the doer whether or not any wage was arranged.
Requital deliberately dealt back onto a person for what they have done, most often God repaying enemies, pictured as something returned upon their own head.Oba 1:15Jol 3:7Jer 51:6Isa 59:18
A benefit or good turn done for someone, the kindness that calls for a matching return in kind.Psa 103:22Ch 32:25
Both
Both name what one receives in return for conduct, a recompense measured out to match the work of a person's hands.Isa 3:11Pro 12:14Pro 22:4Psa 19:11
Names payback shaped to match the deed and sent straight back at the doer, so the same treatment lands on the head of the one who dealt it out.Oba 1:15Jol 3:7Psa 137:8
Can name the good someone has already done for you, so what is in view is a debt of gratitude rather than anything earned by labor.Jdg 9:162Ch 32:25Psa 103:2
Stands beside the word for vengeance as a name for the day God settles his account with his enemies, a reckoning announced before it arrives.Isa 35:4Jer 51:6Isa 59:18
Both
Both name what God hands back to someone for the way that person has lived, and both turn up in prayers asking him to close the account.Psa 28:4Lam 3:64Psa 109:20Isa 65:7
Both carry the wisdom saying that a way of life produces its own return, so conduct comes back to the person who practiced it.Pro 12:14Pro 10:16Pro 11:18
Neither word is fixed to reward or to punishment. Each takes its color from what was done, so the same word can be good news or a threat.Pro 19:17Isa 3:11Isa 40:10Isa 62:11
Means ordinary pay owed to a worker, a plain debt for hours put in, with a deadline attached to handing it over.Lev 19:13Ezk 29:20
Can name the work itself rather than what the work brings in, which is why a separate word for the reward sits next to it in the same sentence.2Ch 15:7Jer 31:16Psa 28:5Psa 17:4
gemul in the other biblical languages
ἀνταπόδομαGreek“repayment”the Greek word for a requital or repayment given back for what someone has done, the closest New Testament counterpart to the recompense sense.
μισθόςGreek“wage”the Greek word for wages or reward, the pay due for work; narrower than this word, which covers any return a deed earns, good or bad.
This Hebrew word names the payment itself, the thing a person has coming, so it can be spoken of as an object that travels: what someone has done comes back down onto his own head (Obadiah 1:15,Joel 3:7).Oba 1:15Jol 3:7
It also names a good already handed out, a benefit or kindness received. Israel is told to forget none of God's benefits (Psalm 103:2), and Hezekiah is faulted for giving nothing back for the kindness done to him (2 Chronicles 32:25).Psa 103:22Ch 32:25
Because it names the due rather than the act, it can state what a person has earned without naming who will hand it over: what a wicked man's own hands have earned will be done to him (Isaiah 3:11), and Gideon's sons are treated as his hands deserved (Judges 9:16).Isa 3:11Jdg 9:16
Both
Both hold the idea of a return measured by what a person actually did, so the payment matches the deed. In Hebrew the fruit of a man's words and the work of his hands come back to him (Proverbs 12:14), and in Greek the one who feeds guests who cannot pay is paid back later (Luke 14:14). English Bibles reach for the same family of words for both, "recompense" and "repay".Pro 12:14Luk 14:14
Both carry the promise that God, not the injured party, settles the account with those who harm his people. Isaiah says God will pay according to what people have done (Isaiah 59:18), and Hebrews quotes the same conviction as "I will repay" (Hebrews 10:30).Isa 59:18Lam 3:64Heb 10:30
This Greek word names the act of paying back rather than the payment, so someone is always doing the paying: God gives trouble back to those who trouble his people (2 Thessalonians 1:6), and the Lord himself says "I will repay" (Romans 12:19).2Th 1:6Rom 12:19
It covers giving thanks and gifts back to a giver, not only settling a debt of wrongdoing. Paul asks what thanks he could possibly give back to God for his readers (1 Thessalonians 3:9), and he asks who ever gave God anything first so that God would owe a return (Romans 11:35).1Th 3:9Rom 11:35
It can point ahead to one fixed future moment when accounts are settled: a host who invites people who cannot pay him back is told he will be paid back at the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:14).Luk 14:14
What scholars say about gemul
The standard critical lexicons (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat גְּמוּל as a single noun from the root גמל, with a range covering what one does (a deed or dealing, Judg 9:16;Prov 19:17), what is done to one (a benefit, 2 Chr 32:25;Ps 103:2), and the recompense or requital a deed draws (Isa 35:4; Joel 4:4-7 [Eng. 3:4-7]; Obad 15). The theological dictionaries (Seybold, TDOT s.v. גמל; TWOT §360) analyze the root as denoting dealing fully or completely with a person, from which both the positive "benefit" and the retributive "requital" develop, and note that the recompense sense predominates in the prophetic oracles of judgment. There is no live dispute over the word's meaning; the only fine-grained questions concern which sub-sense a handful of verses take (e.g. 2 Chr 32:25;Prov 19:17), where the deed and the return it earns shade into each other.
Sources
BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. גְּמוּלlexicon
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. גְּמוּלlexicon
DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. גְּמוּלlexicon
K. Seybold, "גָּמַל gāmal," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 3:23-33dictionary
Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT), §360, s.v. גמלdictionary