overflowing fury: anger that swells past its limits and pours out, and by extension pride swollen to the same excess
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
This word comes from a root that means to cross over or to overflow, and that picture stays alive inside it. It is not simple anger but anger that has passed its bounds and spilled out, the way a river breaks its banks. English Bibles reach for fury, wrath, rage, or overflowing anger. Most often it is God's, poured out in judgment, and it is a signature word for the coming day of wrath.
The same overflow can belong to a person, and then it tends to be cruel or unrelenting: the anger of Simeon and Levi that is called fierce and cruel, Edom nursing its rage forever, a king's fury falling on a servant.
In a few places the thing that overflows is not anger but pride. Moab's self-importance swells past all measure and is named with this same word. The two shades hold together because they are one idea: something inside a person that has grown too big for its bounds and bursts out.
Nuances
1afury, rage, wrath: anger boiling over and poured out, whether God's or a person's
the pride here is specifically an overflow, self-importance swollen past its limits, sitting so close to fury that one word can cover bothIsa 16:6
Both
both describe overweening self-importance that treats others with contemptJer 48:30
Only arrogance
the English word is only about pride and carries none of the anger or the overflowing excess the Hebrew word keeps
“indignation”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How evrah differs from similar Hebrew words
אַףthe ordinary and most common word for anger, pictured as the flaring nose or face; broader than this word and not tied to the idea of overflowing excess
Can name arrogant, insolent pride rather than anger itself: an overweening self-exaltation that puffs a person or a nation up above others.Pro 21:24Isa 16:6Jer 48:30
Pictures wrath as a flood that overflows its banks and pours out on the wicked in the day of reckoning, stressing excess spilling past all bounds.Ezk 7:19Zep 1:15Job 21:30
Both
Both name fierce, burning anger, and poets stack them side by side to intensify it, of people as much as of God.Gen 49:7Psa 78:49
Both describe the wrath God pours out on the wicked in the day of the LORD.Isa 13:9Psa 90:11
Names a literal body part first of all: the nose, the nostrils, the face. The anger sense grows out of the flaring of the nostrils, so the word can simply mean the physical feature.Gen 2:7Gen 24:47Gen 3:19
The ordinary, everyday word for anger of any subject, and the one used in the set phrase for patience that describes God as slow to anger and rich in mercy.Exo 34:6Num 14:18
חֵמָהhot anger, wrath felt as inner heat or venom; this word instead pictures anger crossing its limits and pouring out
Names wrath that suddenly breaks out against the whole community as a deadly plague, going forth so that people fall until it is stopped.Num 1:53Num 16:46Jos 22:20
Describes anger that comes down upon a nation or its leaders as the penalty for breaking faith with God.2Ch 19:22Ch 24:18Zec 1:2
גָּאוֹןpride or majesty as loftiness and swelling height; the near-synonym for this word's arrogance sense, though it does not carry the anger this word keeps
Its dominant sense is overflowing wrath, the flood of divine anger poured out on the day of judgment, a note the partner word never carries.Zep 1:15Ezk 7:19Psa 78:49
It also names the hot outburst of human rage that boils over and wounds others, a spilling of temper rather than a settled loftiness.Gen 49:7Isa 14:6
Both
Both describe the swollen arrogance of a nation puffed up against others, and the two are set side by side to condemn Moab's overbearing self-importance.Isa 16:6Jer 48:29Jer 48:30
It can be wholly positive: the majesty, splendor, and excellency of God and of what God exalts, never a fault. Its partner word is only ever a flaw or a threat.Exo 15:7Isa 24:14
Its root picture is height and swelling, so it names loftiness itself: the towering thicket along a flooded Jordan, the rearing waves of the sea, the pomp of a proud city.Jer 12:5Job 38:11Ezk 7:24
Names insolent pride itself, not only anger: the overreaching self-importance of Moab and of the haughty scorner.Pro 21:24Isa 16:6Jer 48:30
Pictures rage that boils over and floods past its bounds, flung abroad or poured out without measure.Job 40:11Hos 5:10
Both
Both name the LORD's wrath poured out in judgment, and the prophets stack them together in one oracle to intensify the coming outpouring of divine anger.Psa 78:49Ezk 22:31
Both mark the great day of reckoning, the appointed time when God's anger falls.Ezk 22:24Zep 1:15
Carries the note of an angry sentence declared against nations: "the indignation" is a fixed, appointed span of God's judgment that runs its course and then ends.Isa 26:20Dan 8:19Dan 11:36
Sits on the mouth, lips, or tongue as spoken denunciation and cursing.Isa 30:27Hos 7:16
evrah in the other biblical languages
ὀργήGreek“wrath”the Greek word for settled, purposeful wrath, especially God's judgment; often renders this word but reads as more measured than its picture of anger overflowing
Carries the sense of overflow and excess, anger that bursts its banks and is poured out, built on a root that pictures crossing over or flooding past a limit.Gen 49:7Job 40:11Isa 14:6
Repeatedly tied to human arrogance and pride, the swollen rage of the haughty.Pro 21:24Isa 16:6
Both
Both are principal words for the wrath of God poured out in judgment against sin.Ezk 22:31Rom 1:18
Both attach to the coming day of judgment, named as a day of wrath.Zep 1:15Rom 2:5
Names God's wrath as a settled, standing condition rather than a passing outburst: a fixed judicial indignation that remains on those who refuse God.Jhn 3:36Eph 2:3Rom 4:15
Also covers the ordinary human anger a believer is told to lay aside, treated as a moral failing to be renounced.Jas 1:20Eph 4:31Col 3:8
θυμόςGreek“wrath”the Greek word for a hot outburst of rage that boils up and passes; closest to this word's sense of anger bursting its bounds
It pictures fury as a flood that bursts its banks and sweeps beyond all bounds, an anger defined by overflow.Isa 10:6Psa 90:11Job 40:11
It can name arrogant insolence, a self swollen past its limits, so it shades into pride and haughtiness rather than plain rage.Pro 21:24Isa 16:6Jer 48:30
Both
Both name a boiling outburst of wrath, the anger that erupts in the moment rather than a cool, settled indignation.Luk 4:28Act 19:28Gen 49:7
Both are used for God's poured-out wrath on the day of judgment, the anger that falls when reckoning finally comes.Rev 14:10Rev 16:19Zep 1:15Ezk 7:19
It names a person's hot flare of temper, the kind of rage the New Testament lists among the sins of the heart to be stripped off.Gal 5:20Eph 4:31Col 3:8
It can name a burning craving rather than anger at all, the intoxicating passion pictured as wine that maddens whoever drinks it.Rev 14:8Rev 18:3
What scholars say about evrah
The noun derives from the root עבר, whose core sense is to cross over or pass beyond, extended to the idea of overflowing or exceeding a limit. Standard lexica accordingly gloss עֶבְרָה as an outpouring of anger (fury, rage, wrath) and, in a small group of texts, as overweening arrogance (BDB grouping both under overflow, arrogance, fury). The word is heavily concentrated in prophetic judgment and day-of-Yahweh contexts (Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zephaniah), where the subject is characteristically divine, and it also names human fury (Genesis 49:7;Amos 1:11; Proverbs). The arrogance sense clusters in the Moab oracle (Isaiah 16:6;Jeremiah 48:30), where the word stands in parallel with terms for pride, and in Proverbs 21:24, where it is joined to a word for insolence; some translators there prefer wrath or boasting, but the parallel pride vocabulary favors arrogance.