greedy craving: a grasping, self-serving desire, almost always the wicked's
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This is the rarer of two different words that happen to be spelled the same way. Here it names desire, but not the wholesome kind: it is a grasping, greedy craving, the appetite of people set on getting their own way at others' expense.
Hebrew has an ordinary, often neutral word for wanting or longing (תַּאֲוָה). This word is narrower and darker. In every clear case it belongs to the wicked or the treacherous, and it usually leads to their downfall: they are trapped by the very thing they crave.
The line between this craving and the other word spelled the same way (destruction) is thin, and a couple of verses can be read either way, which is why English translations sometimes disagree.
Pro 10:3Pro 11:6*Mic 7:3
2
destruction: engulfing ruin, whether a disaster that swallows a victim or the deadly harm people scheme against one another
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
This is the dominant word by far, and it is grim. It pictures ruin that swallows a person whole, like a gaping pit or a flood, and it runs all through the Psalms, Proverbs, and Job.
It works at two poles:
a calamity or disaster that falls on someone and engulfs them, close in force to אֵיד, the day of disaster
the destruction that wicked people deliberately plot, speak, and work against others, which is where the word appears most often (again and again it is paired with the tongue, with scheming, and with lies)
A very close relative, הֹוָה, carries only this destruction sense and never the craving one. Older English Bibles frequently rendered this word "mischief," a choice that badly understates it in modern ears: nothing playful is meant, but lethal ruin.
Nuances
2aa calamity or disaster that engulfs and befalls a person
TranslatabilityApproximate
Job 6:2*Job 30:13Psa 57:1(2)Psa 91:3Pro 19:13
2bthe destruction people plot, speak, or work against others, often with the tongue
In its desire sense this word is always a dark, greedy craving that belongs to the wicked or the treacherous and is bent on someone else's harm; it is never a good longing.Pro 11:6Mic 7:3
Both
Both can name the craving of the wicked, which God frustrates and brings to nothing.Pro 10:3Psa 112:10
The ordinary, morally neutral word for desire or longing, which can just as easily be a good and even God-directed yearning as a sinful one.Psa 10:17Isa 26:8Pro 11:23
Also covers plain bodily appetite, the simple hunger or craving for something wanted, with no moral color of its own.Num 11:4Psa 78:29
הֹוָהA very close relative meaning ruin or misfortune, almost a byform, but it carries only the destruction sense and never the craving one.
Carries a second, wholly separate sense of greedy craving, the grasping appetite of a wicked person that the near-twin word never means.Mic 7:3Pro 10:3
Both
Names ruin, calamity, or disaster, a crushing destruction that falls on someone or is plotted against them.Psa 38:12Isa 47:11
אֵידCalamity or the day of disaster, usually a blow that falls from outside; this word more often names ruin that people scheme and work on one another.
Names ruin that people deliberately devise and speak, lodged in the tongue and lips as the harm one person aims at another.Psa 52:2Psa 38:12Mic 7:3
Sits inside the wicked as a settled bent of the heart, the destruction their inward being is full of.Psa 5:9Psa 55:11
Also carries the craving or greedy desire that drives such scheming, the appetite of the wicked that runs to ruin.Pro 10:3Pro 11:6
Both
Both are commonly rendered "calamity" or "ruin" in English, and each can name destructive trouble that overtakes a person, so the plain translation hides which word pictures a schemed harm and which an outside blow.Pro 6:15Psa 57:1
Names disaster that falls from outside, cast again and again as "the day of" someone's calamity, a fixed day of doom that arrives on a person or nation rather than one they plotted.Deu 32:35Jer 18:17Oba 1:13
Sweeps in suddenly like a storm or whirlwind, with no human author, overtaking its victim before there is time to escape.Pro 1:27Pro 6:15Pro 24:22
Marks the moment the wicked or an enemy is finally overthrown, the downfall reserved for them or gloated over by onlookers.Job 21:30Pro 17:5
havvah in the other biblical languages
ἐπιθυμίαGreek“desire”The Greek word for craving or lust, the closest counterpart to the greedy-desire sense.
In its desire sense הַוָּה names the grasping greed of the wicked and the powerful reaching for what they want, the appetite that tramples others to be satisfied.Pro 10:3Pro 11:6
The same Hebrew word is chiefly a word for engulfing ruin and calamity, so even its craving sense carries the shadow of destruction. The Greek ἐπιθυμία has no such second life.Psa 5:9Psa 57:1
Both
Both name a strong craving that turns sinful when it reaches for what is forbidden or belongs to another, the greedy appetite Scripture warns against.Mic 7:3Rom 7:7
ἐπιθυμία can be a good and eager longing, not only a sinful craving: Jesus's deep longing to eat the Passover with his disciples, and Paul's longing to depart and be with Christ. The Hebrew word for greedy desire never carries this positive range.Luk 22:15Php 1:23
As the everyday New Testament word for desire, ἐπιθυμία covers the whole field of human appetite, from bodily hunger to the pull of riches and pleasure, and names the urge itself without in every case declaring it wicked.Mrk 4:19Eph 2:3
ἀπώλειαGreek“destruction”The Greek word for destruction and ruin, the closest counterpart to the destruction sense.
It most often names ruin that wicked people deliberately scheme, speak, and work against a victim, repeatedly tied to the lying tongue and to plotting, so the destruction is an active malice rather than only an outcome.Psa 5:9Psa 52:2Pro 17:4
It pictures a calamity that swallows a person whole, like a gaping pit or a flood, a disaster that falls on and engulfs its victim within this life.Job 6:2Psa 57:1Psa 91:3
Both
Both name destruction that overwhelms and undoes a person, the grim ruin from which the victim finds no escape.Job 30:13Mat 7:13
In the New Testament this is the standard name for the final doom of the ungodly, set as the exact opposite of being saved and of eternal life, so it reaches beyond present-life wreckage to a last, irreversible undoing at judgment.Mat 7:13Php 3:192Pe 3:7
It can name plain material waste, the throwing away or squandering of something valuable, with no moral or eternal weight at all.Mat 26:8Mrk 14:4
It becomes a label fixed on a person (the son of destruction), branding someone as belonging to this ruin and headed for it.Jhn 17:122Th 2:3
What scholars say about havvah
The standard lexica treat the form as two homonyms. One (BDB, HALOT s.v. הַוָּה I) means desire or craving, and is connected with a root notion of yearning; it is limited to a handful of wisdom and prophetic texts (Mic 7:3;Prov 10:3; and, disputed, Prov 11:6). The other (BDB, HALOT s.v. הַוָּה II) means engulfing ruin, destruction, or disaster, and is generally linked to a root cognate with Arabic hawā "to fall, gape," hence the recurring image of a yawning pit or chasm. This second word dominates the corpus, especially in the Psalms and Proverbs, where it repeatedly denotes destruction devised and spoken against others (of the tongue: Ps 5:10; 52:4; 38:13; Prov 17:4). BDB further distinguishes within it between engulfing ruin that befalls a victim and the mischief one deliberately works. A few occurrences are contested at the boundary: Prov 11:6 between the two homonyms, and Ps 52:9 (English 52:7) where a proposed sense "wealth, substance" competes with "destruction." Verse numbering here follows the English tradition.