to be of use: to bring real benefit or advantage, to actually do someone good
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its core this verb asks a hard, practical question: does this thing actually help me, or is it worthless? It is not about a passing favor or lending a hand. It is about whether something you count on pays off in the end, whether it delivers the good you were hoping for.
The word's most striking feature is where the Bible almost always puts it: in the negative. Time after time it lines up the things people trust in and exposes them as empty:
carved idols and false gods that "profit nothing"
hoarded or dishonest wealth that cannot save its owner
foreign alliances and armies that fail the nation relying on them
prophets and diviners whose words come to nothing
Because of this pattern, the word carries a built-in edge. Even when it simply means "to do good," it usually shows up to say that something does NOT. The one bright exception is God himself, who "teaches you to profit," the only helper in the list who actually delivers. Two nearby words fill out the picture: the Hebrew סָכַן also means to be of service or use, and the Greek ὠφελέω is its close counterpart in the New Testament, the word behind "what does it profit a man?"
asks whether something does you genuine good, with no built-in link to money; the one true "profit" in view is what God teaches and givesIsa 48:17
Both
both name the gaining of a real advantage or benefit from somethingPro 10:2
Only profit
in modern English "profit" leans toward money and financial gain, a narrowing the Hebrew never intends
“benefit”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“avail”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“do good”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How ya'al differs from similar Hebrew words
סָכַןalso means to be of use or benefit, but leans toward being of personal service to someone (in Job, whether a person can even be of use to God); this word leans toward whether a thing yields real advantage, and is the one that keeps exposing what cannot
Its subject is typically the thing people are counting on, and the verb is what exposes it as delivering nothing: a carved image, a hoard of ill-gotten money, a comforting message that is false.Hab 2:18Pro 10:2Jer 7:8
It is the prophets' standing verdict on false worship, repeated against the gods Israel ran after and against the foreign alliances they leaned on, always with the same answer that nothing came back.Jer 2:8Jer 2:11Isa 30:5Isa 44:9
It can also be said of God in the positive, as the one who teaches his people what will actually do them good, so the word is not locked into denial.Isa 48:17
Both
Both are used of words that get nowhere, standing side by side in one line where Eliphaz asks whether Job's arguing accomplishes anything at all.Job 15:3
Both name the payoff a person hopes to get from staying clean before God, paired in the complaint Elihu quotes back at Job.Job 35:3
Both live mostly inside questions and denials rather than in claims that something did any good, so each is a way of saying that the expected return never arrives.Job 21:15Job 22:2
It can name a person's standing job rather than a result: the young woman kept at the aged king's side to look after him, and the official put in charge of the palace household.1Ki 1:21Ki 1:4Isa 22:15
It reaches into being used to something by long habit, as when the donkey asks Balaam whether she has ever been in the habit of treating him this way.Num 22:30
It also covers close personal acquaintance: God knows the psalmist's paths the way one knows a person lived with, and Job is urged to get on familiar terms with God.Psa 139:3Job 22:21
Where it does mean benefit, the one who might gain is often God himself, and the point is that even a blameless life adds nothing to him.Job 22:2Job 34:9
Names the act of doing someone good rather than the good itself: the question is whether a thing or a person can actually help when help is needed. It stands beside words for rescuing and helping, so the failure it reports is a failure to save.1Sa 12:21Isa 30:5Pro 11:4
Carries the prophets' verdict on idols and misplaced trust: whatever people turn to in place of God is exposed as the thing that does no good at all.Jer 2:11Isa 44:9Hab 2:18
Can name a benefit God himself confers, so the word is not only a negative one: God is the teacher who actually does his people good.Isa 48:17
Both
Both drive the blunt question "what good is any of it?" about effort spent, and in each case the expected answer is none.Job 21:15Job 35:3Ecc 1:3Ecc 5:16
Both are most often used with a negative, as the standard way of saying that something returns absolutely nothing for what was put into it.Jer 12:13Isa 57:12Ecc 2:11
Both are used to dismiss mere talk as worthless: words that accomplish nothing, and a skill with the tongue that comes too late to matter.Job 15:3Ecc 10:11
Names the thing gained rather than the helping: it is the surplus left in hand once the ledger of a life's work has been added up, which is why it belongs to the accounting question about all a person's toil.Ecc 1:3Ecc 2:11Ecc 3:9
Measures one thing against another, so it can be rendered "advantage" in a straight comparison: wisdom has this over folly the way light has it over darkness, and a sharpened tool has it over a blunt one.Ecc 2:13Ecc 7:12Ecc 10:10
Can name a concrete yield that a resource returns, not just an abstract benefit: the return the land itself gives.Ecc 5:9
ya'al in the other biblical languages
ὠφελέωGreek“to help”the close Greek counterpart, to profit or benefit or avail; it is the word behind "what does it profit a man?" and the Greek Old Testament regularly uses it to render this Hebrew verb
The signature word for the uselessness of idols and false gods: carved images and molten gods that "cannot profit" their worshippers at all.Isa 44:9Isa 44:10Jer 2:8Jer 2:11Hab 2:181Sa 12:21
Exposes the emptiness of ill-gotten wealth, lies, and false refuge: treasures of wickedness, riches, and deceptive words that "do not avail" in the day of reckoning.Pro 10:2Pro 11:4Jer 7:8Jer 23:32
Names the LORD as the one who alone truly "teaches to profit", the rare positive turn where genuine benefit is set against every futile alternative.Isa 48:17
Both
Both carry the plain idea of gaining benefit or being of real use, each the standard verb its language reaches for to say something "profits".Isa 48:17Heb 4:2
Both live overwhelmingly in negative and rhetorical statements about what does NOT profit, driving home that a thing avails nothing.Isa 44:10Jhn 6:63
Weighs gain against loss in a cost-and-benefit calculus: the ringing question of what it "profits" a person to gain the whole world yet forfeit the soul.Mat 16:26Mrk 8:36Luk 9:25
Takes a personal object, so one party actively "benefits" another person, not just a thing being useful in the abstract.Mat 15:51Co 14:6
Tests whether a religious act or observance actually does any good, weighing circumcision, self-sacrifice without love, or ritual foods.Rom 2:25Gal 5:21Co 13:3Heb 13:9
What scholars say about ya'al
The lexica are agreed on this verb, attested only in the hiphil, with the sense "to be of use, profit, benefit, avail" (BDB; HALOT; DCH). Its concentration in the prophets and in Job, and its heavily negated distribution, is widely noted: the great majority of its occurrences deny that idols, ill-gotten wealth, political alliances, or false prophecy can profit anyone (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk), which gives the verb a polemical function in the critique of misplaced trust. The lone positive theological use, Isaiah 48:17 (the LORD "who teaches you to profit"), stands out against this background. The verb is unrelated to the homographic noun for the mountain goat and the personal name Jael.