what a person lacks: a need waiting to be supplied, or the poverty that going short settles into
This noun comes from the ordinary Hebrew verb for coming up short (חָסֵר), and it names the shortfall itself. Sometimes the shortfall is a specific, countable thing. Deuteronomy 15:8 tells an Israelite to open his hand to a poor neighbor and lend him enough for his need, whatever he happens to be short of, and in Judges 19:20 the old man of Gibeah tells a party of travelers that whatever they need is now his responsibility.
Sometimes it names a condition rather than an item, and in every verse where it does, the Bible denies the condition. Scouts report a territory where nothing at all is lacking, a traveler insists he is short of nothing, Psalm 34:9 promises that those who fear the LORD go without nothing, and Proverbs 28:27 says the person who gives to the poor will not go short himself.
Seven of the word's thirteen appearances are in Proverbs, where it takes on a narrower job: naming poverty as a verdict, the place a way of living ends up. The book keeps reaching for the same brief formula, roughly "and only to want":
- laziness ends in want (Proverbs 6:11, repeated word for word at 24:34)
- talk in place of work ends in want (Proverbs 14:23)
- rushing ends in want (Proverbs 21:5)
- squeezing the poor to get rich ends in want (Proverbs 22:16)
- holding back what ought to be given ends in want (Proverbs 11:24)
In the two sayings about laziness the word stands beside another Hebrew word for poverty (רֵישׁ), the pair picturing destitution arriving first like a prowler and then like an armed man. Holding the whole range together is worth the effort: Deuteronomy commands Israel to supply a neighbor's need, Proverbs warns that refusing to supply it is itself one road to need, and Psalm 34:9 and Proverbs 28:27 say of the God-fearing and the generous that they will never meet the very thing the wisdom teachers warn about.