to provoke someone to anger; to goad another into fury, most often God
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the active, causative side of the word: not feeling anger yourself but stirring it up in someone else. By far its commonest use describes Israel and its kings provoking the LORD to anger, almost always by worshiping other gods or idols. The books of Kings and Jeremiah repeat the charge again and again, until provoking God becomes a near-formula for the nation's idolatry and the reason given for the exile.
The same action can be aimed at a person rather than at God. When that happens the word shades toward needling or tormenting someone until they are miserable, as a rival wife does to Hannah year after year. So the one idea, deliberately working another person up, runs from the rival's cruelty in a household all the way to a nation pushing its God past patience.
What ties these uses together is intent and result: an act, usually a sustained and willful one, that successfully kindles anger or anguish in the one it targets.
Nuances
1ato provoke the LORD to anger, almost always through idolatry
1bto provoke or grieve a person, needling someone into misery
1Sa 1:61Sa 1:7Ezk 32:9*
2
to be angry, or to be grieved and vexed; the inward state of a stirred-up spirit
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
Here the word turns inward and names the feeling itself rather than the act of causing it. The same root can describe hot anger and quiet misery, because both are the unsettled churn of a spirit that cannot be at peace.
In the historical books it is plain anger: a king flies into a rage, an enemy is furious, even God speaks of His own fury finally spending itself and coming to rest. In the wisdom writings the feeling is gentler and sadder, closer to grief, frustration, or the gnawing vexation that wisdom warns will lodge in a fool's heart and spoil the good of his labor.
The range from rage to grief is not two different words but one: the Hebrew does not draw the sharp line English does between being angry and being deeply troubled, and translators choose between them by context.
Nuances
2ato be angry or enraged
2Ch 16:10Neh 4:1(3:33)Ecc 7:9Ezk 16:42
2bto be grieved or vexed, a troubled and frustrated spirit
Names the act of provoking someone else to anger, the relational needling that rouses wrath in another, not the heat felt by the angry one.1Sa 1:61Sa 1:7
The standard word for Israel provoking God to anger through idolatry, the refrain that explains the kings' judgment.Deu 32:161Ki 14:91Ki 16:33Jer 7:18
Also covers the grief and vexation a person suffers, the galling distress that settles in the heart.Ecc 7:9Psa 112:10
Both
Both describe the rousing of God's wrath that brings covenant judgment, and the two stand together when his anger against Judah and Jerusalem is at its hottest.2Ki 23:26
Both can voice human anger flaring against opponents, as when Nehemiah's enemies react to the rebuilt wall.Neh 4:1
Names the inner heat of anger flaring up in the angry party, the kindling of wrath itself rather than what stirred it.Gen 4:5Exo 32:19Jon 4:1
Used for the burning displeasure a person feels at a wrong done to them, the sudden flush of hot indignation.Gen 31:361Sa 17:282Sa 12:5
Can be quieted or counseled away, so Scripture warns against letting one's anger blaze (do not fret yourself, it only leads to harm).Psa 37:1Psa 37:8Pro 24:19
קָצַףnames a settled wrath, often a superior's against an offender; this word emphasizes the act of provoking that wrath
Names the ACT of provoking another to anger: stirring someone up, vexing them, goading them until they are upset. The provoker is the subject, and the standard target is God, whom Israel provokes by worshiping other gods.Deu 4:251Ki 14:9Jer 7:18
Reaches past anger to plain grief and hurt feelings between people: it covers the ache of being needled and provoked, as when a rival wife taunts a childless woman year after year.1Sa 1:61Sa 1:7Ecc 7:9
Both
Both belong to the vocabulary of divine anger and are aimed squarely at God's reaction to his people's sin, so English Bibles often render either one as anger or wrath.Deu 9:18Deu 9:8
Names the STATE of being angry: a wrath that flares up and settles in the one who is offended, most often a superior reacting to wrongdoing. It is God's burning anger, or a king's against his servants.Num 16:22Gen 40:2Est 1:12
Describes anger as a measured response that can later soften: the wrath has a beginning and an end, so the same word that says God was furious also frames his pledge not to stay angry forever.Isa 57:16Isa 54:9Zec 1:2
כַּעַסthe noun from the same root, the vexation or grief itself; this is the verb of feeling or causing it
ka'as in the other biblical languages
παροργίζωGreek“to anger”the standard Greek word for provoking someone to anger, which the Greek Old Testament regularly uses to render this verb
Overwhelmingly the offense is idolatry, and the one provoked is the LORD: Israel angers God by worshiping other gods and burning incense to them.Deu 4:251Ki 14:9
It also names plain human bitterness and grief between people, as a rival wife needles her childless counterpart year after year.1Sa 1:6
Both
Both name the act of stirring up real anger in another by what you do. When the New Testament restates Israel's history, it uses the Greek word to carry the same charge the Hebrew word made about provoking God.Deu 32:21Rom 10:19
In the New Testament the trigger is often everyday and personal, not only sin against God: Paul warns fathers not to goad their children into resentment.Eph 6:4
has as its signature use the rousing of the LORD himself to anger, most often by idolatry and false worship: this is the standard charge laid against Israel and her kings.Deu 4:251Ki 14:9Psa 78:58Jer 25:6
can also name the deliberate wearing down of one person by another to cause them grief, as a rival taunts a barren woman year after year.1Sa 1:61Sa 1:7
Both
both are rendered "provoke," and both name the stirring up of anger or sharp indignation, often set off by the sight of idols.Deu 4:25Act 17:16
describes a person being stirred up inside, a reaction of indignation rising within someone rather than anger stirred up in another: Paul's spirit was roused within him at the sight of a city full of idols.Act 17:16
names ordinary human irritability, the sharp exasperation between people that love refuses to give way to.1Co 13:5
names the act of provoking someone else to anger, most often Israel stirring up the LORD by worshiping other godsDeu 4:251Ki 14:9Jer 7:18
can also describe one person needling and vexing another until they are grieved, as a rival wife did day after day1Sa 1:61Sa 1:7
Both
both belong to the world of anger kindled by offense: one names the burning feeling itself, the other the deliberate stirring of that feeling in anotherEph 4:26Deu 4:25
names the lingering state of anger held inside a person, a smoldering exasperation to be let go of before the day ends rather than nursedEph 4:26
describes anger between people in a community as something to release, not the offense that stirred it upEph 4:26
What scholars say about ka'as
The lexica treat H3707 as a single root with a causative hiphil/piel ("to provoke, vex") and an intransitive qal ("to be angry, grieved"); HALOT and BDB both note the dominant theological use of the hiphil for provoking YHWH through idolatry, concentrated in the Deuteronomistic History and Jeremiah. TDOT and DCH document the affective range from anger to grief, especially the wisdom-book sense of "vexation" in Ecclesiastes and the Psalms. The verb stands beside the cognate noun (H3708) and overlaps the wider anger field (H2734, H7107).
Sources
HALOT, s.v. כעסlexicon
BDB, s.v. כעסlexicon
DCH, s.v. כעסlexicon
Lohfink, 'kāʿas', in TDOT 7:282-288theological-dictionary