StrongerBible

avah

עָוָה

HebrewH5753“commit iniquity, pervert, ...”

Appears 17 times · tap a cell to see the verses

1Sa 20:302Sa 7:142Sa 19:19(20)2Sa 24:171Ki 8:472Ch 6:37Est 1:16Job 33:27Psa 38:6(7)Psa 106:6Pro 12:8Isa 21:3Isa 24:1Jer 3:21Jer 9:5(4)Lam 3:9Dan 9:5
Word studyResearch-gradeah-VAHverb

What avah means

1

to bend, twist, or be bent over: to make something crooked or to be doubled over in the body

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the concrete, physical picture behind the word: something straight is made crooked, or a body is doubled over. A grieving person is bent and bowed low under the weight of trouble (Psalm 38:6; Isaiah 21:3), the same image a bystander sees when someone crumples in pain.

When the twisting is done TO something, it becomes distortion. In two striking places God himself is the one who twists: he warps the face of the earth in a picture of the world being unmade (Isaiah 24:1), and he makes a sufferer's paths crooked so that every road bends the wrong way (Lamentations 3:9). The same act of bending that a person suffers, God can perform as an act of judgment.

From the body the image moves to the mind. A person of "twisted" understanding (Proverbs 12:8) is not physically bent but mentally warped, thinking crookedly. This is the hinge where the plain sense of bending slides toward the moral sense of the next set of uses, and it shows why the same word can mean both "bent over" and "in the wrong."

Nuances

1ato be bent over, bowed down: doubled up in the body by grief or pain
TranslatabilityDirect
Psa 38:6(7)Isa 21:3
1bto twist, distort, make crooked: to bend a straight thing out of shape
Isa 24:1Lam 3:9
1cwarped, of a twisted mind or character
1Sa 20:30Pro 12:8
2

to do wrong, commit iniquity, act perversely: to do what is morally crooked

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the moral use, by far the most common, and it pictures wrongdoing as a bending of what ought to be straight. Its home is the language of confession. "We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly" is the fixed way Israel owned its guilt (1 Kings 8:47; 2 Chronicles 6:37; Psalm 106:6; Daniel 9:5), and individuals used the same word to admit their own fault, from David after the census (2 Samuel 24:17) to an ideal penitent in Job (Job 33:27).

Sometimes the wrong is aimed at a specific thing, and then the old picture of "making crooked" comes through plainly: people "pervert their way" (Jeremiah 3:21), a penitent has "made crooked what was right" (Job 33:27), and one person can simply do another wrong (2 Samuel 19:19; Esther 1:16).

The verb is the root behind the noun עָוֺן, "iniquity," one of the Old Testament's central words for sin. That noun famously runs together the crooked deed, the guilt it brings, and the punishment that follows, so this verb carries more moral weight than a bland "do wrong" suggests: to do this is to bend a standard God laid down straight.

Nuances

2ato commit iniquity, do wrong, act wickedly
2Sa 7:142Sa 19:19(20)2Sa 24:171Ki 8:472Ch 6:37Est 1:16Psa 106:6Jer 9:5(4)Dan 9:5
1Ki 8:47

Whether the three verbs of the confession formula (sinned / committed iniquity / acted wickedly) mark three distinct grades of wrongdoing or function as near-synonyms accumulated for rhetorical completeness.

  • majorityThe verbs are near-synonyms piled up in penitential prayer to express comprehensiveness, not a technical classification of sin types.; Rolf Knierim, Die Hauptbegriffe für Sünde im Alten Testament (1965), 43-113; Mark J. Boda, A Severe Mercy: Sin and Its Remedy in the Old Testament, Siphrut 1 (Eisenbrauns, 2009); Joseph Lam, Patterns of Sin in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: OUP, 2016), 2-4
  • minorityThe terms form a graded scheme, this verb marking deliberate wrongdoing as distinct from inadvertent sin and open rebellion.; Mishnah Yoma 3:8; b. Yoma 36b; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, AB 3 (Doubleday, 1991), 1043 (for Leviticus 16:21)
2bto pervert, make crooked: to twist a way or what is right out of its proper shape
Job 33:27Jer 3:21

What scholars say about avah

The root עוה is a Northwest Semitic lexeme whose deeper etymology rests almost entirely on Arabic, and scholarship has debated for over a century whether it is one root or two. The traditional view (Gesenius; TWOT; Luc in NIDOTTE) reads a single root whose concrete sense "bend, twist, distort" was extended metaphorically to "act crookedly, sin." The rival Lagarde-Driver hypothesis, reflected in BDB's and HALOT's split into two lemmata (עוה I "bend" and a denominative עוה II from the noun עָוֺן), holds that Hebrew ע fused two originally distinct Semitic roots, physical ʿwy "bend" and moral ġwy "go astray," which merged when Proto-Semitic *ġ collapsed into *ʿ; R. C. Steiner's dating of that sound change gives the merger philological plausibility. DCH declines to adjudicate etymology on principle, and Knierim's field-defining Die Hauptbegriffe für Sünde im Alten Testament begins from sentence usage rather than a reconstructed root, rendering the noun "Verfehlung" (failure, going astray). Usage distributes the senses by stem: the Niphal is bodily (Psalm 38:7; Isaiah 21:3), the Piel is transitive distortion with God as subject (Isaiah 24:1; Lamentations 3:9), the Hiphil carries the dominant moral sense of the confession triad, and the rare, late Qal (Esther 1:16; Daniel 9:5 Ketiv) is treated by BDB as denominative from the noun. The noun עָוֺן's threefold range (deed, guilt, punishment) is the datum Klaus Koch built his deed-consequence (Tun-Ergehen) thesis upon; James Barr, Knierim, Miller, and others have curbed its more mechanistic claims while granting the correspondence pattern is real.

Where scholars disagree about avah

Whether עוה is one polysemous root whose concrete sense "bend, twist" was extended to the moral sense "act crookedly, sin," or two originally distinct Semitic roots (physical ʿwy "bend" and moral ġwy "go astray") that merged into one spelling in Hebrew.

  • majorityOne root with a physical basic meaning "bend, twist, distort" extended metaphorically to moral crookedness; the noun עָוֺן carries the derived abstract sense.; Alex Luc, "עוה," in NIDOTTE, vol. 3 (Zondervan, 1997); R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, B. K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Moody, 1980), #1577; Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, trans. Tregelles (1857), s.v. עוה
  • minorityTwo originally distinct roots merged under one spelling; the moral noun עָوֺן belongs with Arabic ġawā "to go astray" rather than with the "bend" root, and is a separate lemma.; S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, 2nd ed. (1913), 135 n., following Lagarde; L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, HALOT (Brill, 1994-2000), s.v. עוה I, עוה II; R. C. Steiner, "On the Dating of Hebrew Sound Changes," JBL 124 (2005): 229-267
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1907), s.v. עוה I, עוה II, עָוֺןlexicon
  • L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brill, 1994-2000), s.v. עוה I, עוה II, עָוֺןlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield, 1993-2011), s.v. עוה, עָוֺןlexicon
  • Alex Luc, "עוה," in W. VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 3 (Zondervan, 1997)reference
  • R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, B. K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Moody, 1980), entry #1577reference
  • Rolf Knierim, Die Hauptbegriffe für Sünde im Alten Testament (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1965)monograph
  • S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 135 n.monograph
  • R. C. Steiner, "On the Dating of Hebrew Sound Changes (*Ḫ > Ḥ and *Ġ > ʿ)," Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005): 229-267article
  • Klaus Koch, "Gibt es ein Vergeltungsdogma im Alten Testament?" Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 52 (1955): 1-42article
  • James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: OUP, 1961), 33-45monograph
  • Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1989)commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of עָוָה

hiphil perfect 1cp

הֶעֱוִינוּ

1Ki 8:47, 2Ch 6:37, Psa 106:6

hiphil perfect 1cs

הֶעֱוֵיתִי

2Sa 24:17, Job 33:27

niphal perfect 1cs

נַעֲוֵיתִי

Psa 38:6, Isa 21:3

hiphil infinitive-absolute absolute

הַעֲוֵה

Jer 9:5

hiphil infinitive-construct construct

הַעֲוֹת

2Sa 7:14

hiphil perfect 3cp

הֶעֱוּוּ

Jer 3:21

hiphil perfect 3ms

הֶעֱוָה

2Sa 19:19

niphal participle f s construct

נַעֲוַת

1Sa 20:30

niphal participle m s construct

נַעֲוֵה

Pro 12:8

piel consecutive-perfect 3ms

וְעִוָּה

Isa 24:1

piel perfect 3ms

עִוָּה

Lam 3:9

qal perfect 1cp

עָוִינוּ

Dan 9:5

qal perfect 3fs

עָוְתָה

Est 1:16