inner distress: the grief, sorrow, or frustration of a spirit worn down by trouble
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This side of the word names an inward ache rather than an outburst. It is the heaviness a person carries when life presses on them: the sorrow of a grieving heart, the sting of being needled by someone, the weary frustration of effort that never satisfies.
It gathers several English feelings into one. Hannah names it when she pours out her misery before the LORD, a foolish son becomes it to his parents, and in the laments the eye grows dim from it. In Ecclesiastes it is the settled frustration of a mind that examines everything and finds no lasting gain, so that even wisdom only adds to the load.
What holds these uses together is a spirit that cannot rest. It is not anger looking for a target but a low, grinding trouble that sits in the chest.
Nuances
1agrief or sorrow: a heavy, troubled heart, whether from loss, affliction, or being provoked by another
1bfrustration: the weary vexation of toil and study that yields no lasting gain, the recurring note of Ecclesiastes
Ecc 1:18Ecc 2:23Ecc 7:3Ecc 11:10
2
anger and its provocation: hot displeasure in a person or in God, and the offense that kindles God's anger
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
Here the word turns outward into anger. It can be a person's temper, especially the quick, showy rage that Proverbs warns is the mark of a fool, a burden heavier to bear than stone or sand.
It is also used of God's anger, His settled displeasure at wrong. From there it takes a further, closely linked sense: the provocation itself, meaning the offense that rouses that anger. When Kings and Deuteronomy speak of the provocation with which a king or a nation provoked the LORD, they mean the idolatry that stirred Him. So the one word covers both the anger and the thing that causes it.
Even at its hottest the word stays near its other side. This is displeasure that has found a target, but it is still the churning of a troubled spirit rather than a cool, calculated fury.
Nuances
2ahuman anger: a person's hot temper, the flash of rage Proverbs ties to folly
Job 5:2Pro 12:16Pro 21:19Pro 27:3Ecc 7:9
2bGod's anger: His settled displeasure and indignation at wrong
Job 10:17Psa 85:4(5)
2cprovocation: the offense, most often idolatry, that stirs God to anger
Deu 32:19Deu 32:27*1Ki 15:301Ki 21:222Ki 23:26Ezk 20:28
Names inward vexation and grief, the gnawing distress the wisdom books weigh against joy, rather than a flare of heat in the face.Ecc 7:3Ecc 1:18Job 5:2Pro 17:25
Is the standard word for the provocation Israel gives God by idolatry, viewed from the side of the offense that stirs him, and for the fretting one person deliberately inflicts on another.1Ki 15:301Ki 21:22Ezk 20:281Sa 1:6
Both
Both name the anger roused by offense, so they stand side by side when the LORD's blazing wrath is set off by the very provocations that Manasseh had piled up.2Ki 23:26
Both are commonly rendered "anger" or "wrath" in English, so a reader may meet the same translation for either word even though one pictures heat and the other pictures vexation.Num 11:11Ki 15:30
Rooted in a body image, the nose or nostrils, so it pictures anger as heat flaring in the face; "slow to anger" is literally "long of nostrils."Exo 34:6
Names the burning wrath that is kindled and blazes up, most often God's own anger flaring against sin before it is turned away or spent.Num 11:1Exo 32:10Deu 6:15
יָגוֹןgrief and sorrow with no angry edge; this word shares that sorrow but can also flare into anger
מַכְאוֹבpain of body or of mind; this word is the mental vexation set beside it in Ecclesiastes, never bodily pain
Names what a person feels inside rather than a fight between two people. It is the misery Hannah pours out before the LORD, the sorrow that wastes the eyes away in the laments, and the heaviness a foolish son becomes to the mother who bore him.1Sa 1:16Psa 6:7Psa 31:9Pro 17:25
Reaches up to God, both for His displeasure at wrong and for the offense that stirs it, which is why the histories keep saying a king sinned and made the LORD angry by his idols. The other word never touches God at all.Deu 32:191Ki 15:302Ki 23:26Ezk 20:28
Covers the weary frustration of work and study that never adds up to anything, with no second party involved. In Ecclesiastes the days of a restless mind are full of it and wisdom itself only increases it.Ecc 1:18Ecc 2:23Ecc 11:10
Ranges across the whole Hebrew Bible, showing up in the song of Moses, the record of the kings, the psalms of the afflicted, and the prophets. The other word never leaves Proverbs.Deu 32:271Ki 21:22Psa 85:4Job 10:17
Both
Proverbs puts the two together in one line about a miserable household: better the wilderness than a house with a woman who is always quarreling and always aggravating. The quarreling is one word, the aggravation is the other, and the same person produces both.Pro 21:19
Both name trouble that one difficult person lays on the people around them rather than trouble that comes from circumstances. A rival wife needles Hannah year after year and a fool is a heavier load than stone or sand, just as a troublemaker scatters quarrels and a hot tempered man gets a fire going.1Sa 1:6Pro 27:3Pro 6:14Pro 26:21
Names the quarreling itself, an event between two parties that someone can set loose or walk into. A troublemaker with twisted plans sends it out wherever he goes, it stands between an offended brother and reconciliation, and the man who lingers over wine wakes up with it along with the bruises.Pro 6:14Pro 18:19Pro 23:29
Labels a person by the quarrels she or he produces, in the Hebrew phrases behind "a quarrelsome woman" and "a quarrelsome man". Better a corner of the roof than a shared house with the one, and the other kindles a fight the way charcoal starts a fire.Pro 21:9Pro 25:24Pro 26:21
Can be brought to an end from outside the people involved, because it is a dispute and not a mood: casting the lot settles it when two strong parties are deadlocked.Pro 18:18
Is pictured as steady wear rather than a single blow, the leak of a roof that keeps dripping on a rainy day and will not be stopped.Pro 19:13Pro 27:15
ka'as in the other biblical languages
ὀργήGreek“wrath”the standard Greek word for anger or wrath; it covers the anger side of this Hebrew word but not its softer sense of grief
כַּעַס reaches well beyond anger to inward grief, sorrow, and vexation: the ache of a troubled mind. Wisdom writers use it for pain that gnaws at a person, not for hostility toward another.1Sa 1:16Ecc 1:18Psa 6:7Job 6:2
כַּעַס names the provocation itself, especially provoking God to anger through idolatry. The word points to the offense that stirs the anger as much as to the anger.1Ki 15:30Deu 32:19Ezk 20:28
כַּעַס covers the fool's quick irritation in everyday life, the short temper that flares openly.Pro 12:16Ecc 7:9
Both
Both name the settled anger of God against wrongdoing.1Ki 15:30Rom 1:18
Both cover human anger, including the anger of a fool.Pro 27:3Jas 1:20
ὀργή is above all the coming judgment of God: his settled wrath held back for the day of reckoning, the wrath people must be rescued from. This eschatological, courtroom freight is its dominant note.Rom 2:51Th 1:10
ὀργή names anger as a lasting, settled condition that remains on a person, not a passing flare of temper. It is the abiding disposition rather than the momentary outburst.Jhn 3:36Rom 5:9
λύπηGreek“grief”the Greek word for grief or sorrow; it matches the inner-distress side of this word but not its use for anger or provocation
Reaches well beyond anger to name inner grief, distress, and bitter vexation that has no angry object at all: a rival wife's cruelty that drives a woman to weep, the sting of loss that dims the eyes, the sorrow that comes with much wisdom.1Sa 1:16Psa 6:7Ecc 1:18
Most often names God's own provoked anger, the offense his people rouse in him by idols and unfaithfulness, a use that has no counterpart in the human, momentary Greek word.Deu 32:191Ki 15:301Ki 21:22
Both
Both name anger that something has provoked or stirred up rather than a calm state, a heat kindled by an offense or an irritant.Pro 21:19Eph 4:26
Names specifically the anger that lingers after something has stirred you up, the residual irritated mood that has not been let go. The one time it appears, it is the anger you are told not to carry overnight, not the flare-up itself.Eph 4:26
Denotes anger only, never inner grief or sorrow. It is a settled hot feeling toward someone or something, not a heaviness of heart with no target.Eph 4:26
What scholars say about ka'as
The lexica treat H3708 as the cognate noun of the verb H3707, one root spanning affective distress and anger. BDB and HALOT divide the noun into two principal senses: (1) grief or vexation, the inner distress prominent in the laments and the wisdom books, notably the recurring כַּעַס of Ecclesiastes paired with מַכְאוֹב (Eccl 1:18); and (2) anger, of man and of God, from which develops the nominal sense of provocation, the offense (characteristically idolatry) that rouses divine anger, concentrated in Deuteronomy 32 and the Deuteronomistic History of Kings. TDOT (Lohfink) documents the affective range from sorrow to rage and the theological weight of the provocation idiom. The noun stands within the wider Hebrew anger field (חֵמָה H2534, אַף H0639) and the grief field (יָגוֹן H3015, מַכְאוֹב H4341), and beside its own verb H3707.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. כעסlexicon
BDB, s.v. כעסlexicon
DCH, s.v. כעסlexicon
Lohfink, 'kāʿas', in TDOT 7:282-288theological-dictionary