StrongerBible

ezrah

עֶזְרָה

HebrewH5833“help, succour, ...”

Appears 26 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Jdg 5:23 (2×)2Ch 28:21Job 6:13Job 31:21Psa 22:19(20)Psa 27:9Psa 35:2Psa 38:22(23)Psa 40:13(14)Psa 40:17(18)Psa 44:26(27)Psa 46:1(2)Psa 60:11(13)Psa 63:7(8)Psa 70:1(2)Psa 71:12Psa 94:17Psa 108:12(13)Isa 10:3Isa 20:6Isa 31:1Isa 31:2Jer 37:7Lam 4:17Nam 3:9
Word studyResearch-gradeez-RAHnoun

What ezrah means

help: the decisive, active intervention of a stronger party to rescue a weaker one in trouble

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This word is easy to translate as "help," but the English word undersells it. It does not mean the mild assistance of lending a hand. It means the kind of help a person in real danger cries out for: a rescue, brought by someone strong enough to change the outcome. The helper has to come near, and fast, which is why the word so often travels with verbs of rising up, hurrying, and coming.

Almost every time it appears, the help in view is God's. It lives in the language of prayer under pressure, above all in the Psalms, where five times the sufferer prays the same urgent line, "hurry to my help." Psalm 46 lifts it to its height: God is "a very present help in trouble," a help that holds even as the earth gives way. Psalm 94 puts it the other direction: "if the LORD had not been my help, my soul would soon have gone down to silence." The help is life or death.

The prophets take the same word and turn it into a test. When crisis came, Judah kept running to Egypt "for help," trusting horses and armies. Isaiah's answer cuts to the bone: Egypt is human and not God, their horses are flesh and not spirit. A creature cannot finally give this kind of help, because the rescue the word names is something only the Maker of heaven and earth can do. To seek it from anyone else is not just bad politics but a kind of misplaced worship, and it fails: the helper stumbles and the one helped falls with him.

Just once the direction reverses. In the Song of Deborah the town of Meroz is cursed "because they did not come to the help of the LORD," that is, because they would not join his cause when the battle was his. Even there the point stands: this is help that decides who wins.

Jdg 5:23 (2×)Job 6:13Job 31:21Psa 22:19(20)Psa 27:9Psa 35:2Psa 38:22(23)Psa 40:13(14)Psa 40:17(18)Psa 44:26(27)Psa 46:1(2)Psa 60:11(13)

What scholars say about ezrah

עֶזְרָה is a feminine abstract noun built on the root עז"ר "to help," the feminine counterpart to the masculine עֵזֶר; the two are largely synonymous, differing chiefly in register and distribution, with עֶזְרָה confined almost entirely to poetry (Psalms, the Latter Prophets, Lamentations, Job) and absent from the Torah. It occurs 26 times. BDB glosses it simply "help, succour"; TDOT (Lipiński) and TLOT (Bergmann) treat biblical usage as a single semantic field, and the SAHD entry (Aitken, Gray, Davies) defines it as active support requiring the proximity of the helper, which explains its constant pairing with verbs of motion (rise, hurry, come) and its tendency to concretize into "Helper." The lexica divide over etymology: HALOT and DCH (Clines) formally split the root, following Ginsberg and Miller in positing a second root (cognate with Ugaritic ǵzr "hero, warrior, be strong") that would give a martial "strength" nuance in archaic poetry, a reading pressed by Dahood for Psalm 46:2 ("stronghold") and Psalm 60:13 ("liberation"). Barr and Emerton warned against multiplying roots on Ugaritic evidence, and most commentators retain the conventional "help." In the Psalter the noun anchors the lament's cry-formula חוּשָׁה לְעֶזְרָתִי "hurry to my help" and the summons קוּמָה בְּעֶזְרָתִי "rise up as my help," analyzed by Kraus, Tate, and Hossfeld-Zenger as the divine-warrior language of Zion theology. In the prophets (Isaiah 10:3; 20:6; 31:1-2; Jeremiah 37:7; Nahum 3:9; Lamentations 4:17; 2 Chronicles 28:21) it becomes the vehicle of a sustained polemic against trusting human, especially Egyptian, help, read by Wildberger, Childs, Blenkinsopp, and Roberts as a confusion of creature with Creator. Three lament passages (Psalms 44:26; 63:7; 94:17) preserve the archaic form עֶזְרָתָה, best explained as a vestigial old accusative or paragogic ending rather than a locative.

Where scholars disagree about ezrah

Whether עֶזְרָה comes from a single root meaning "help," or whether a distinct second root, proposed on Ugaritic evidence and meaning "be strong" or "warrior-protection," gives the word a sense of "strength" or "stronghold" in certain archaic poetic passages (e.g. Psalm 46:1; Psalm 60:11).

  • majorityOne root. In biblical usage the word means "help, rescue" throughout; the apparent "strength" overtones in some poems are supplied by their military settings, not by a separate word, and the proposed rereadings of Psalm 46 and Psalm 60 overread the evidence.; É. Lipiński, "עזר," TDOT 11:12-18; U. Bergmann, "עזר," TLOT 2:872-874; J. K. Aitken, A. Gray, G. I. Davies, "עֶזְרָה," Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database (Cambridge); James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968)
  • minorityTwo roots. A separate root meaning "be strong, hero, protector" (cognate with Ugaritic ǵzr) underlies some poetic occurrences, so the word can carry the sense "strength" or "stronghold" rather than "help."; Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT, s.v. עזר II; D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), vol. 6 (2007), s.v. עזר; Mitchell Dahood, Psalms II (Anchor Bible 17, 1968), 95-96; Patrick D. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Harvard Semitic Monographs 5, 1973)
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

  • Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), 740b-741alexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. עזר I, עזר IIlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), vol. 6 (2007), s.v. עזרlexicon
  • É. Lipiński, "עזר," TDOT 11:12-18dictionary
  • U. Bergmann, "עזר," TLOT 2:872-874dictionary
  • R. Wakely, "עזר," NIDOTTE 3:378-381dictionary
  • J. K. Aitken, A. Gray, G. I. Davies, "עֶזְרָה," Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database (Cambridge)database
  • Patrick D. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Harvard Semitic Monographs 5, 1973)monograph
  • Mitchell Dahood, Psalms (Anchor Bible 16-17A, 1966-1970)commentary
  • James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968)monograph
  • Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39 (Continental Commentary, 2002)commentary
  • Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Old Testament Library, 2001)commentary
  • Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2 (Hermeneia, 2005)commentary

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

All attested forms of עֶזְרָה

f s construct

עֶזְרָתִי

Job 6:13, Job 31:21, Psa 22:19, Psa 27:9, Psa 35:2, Psa 38:22, Psa 40:13, Psa 40:17

f s absolute

עֶזְרָה, עֶזְרָתָה

2Ch 28:21, Psa 46:1, Isa 10:3, Isa 20:6, Isa 31:1, Jer 37:7, Psa 44:26, Psa 63:7

f s construct

עֶזְרַת, עֶזְרָת

Jdg 5:23, Jdg 5:23, Isa 31:2, Psa 60:11, Psa 108:12

f s construct

עֶזְרָתֵנוּ

Lam 4:17

f s construct

עֶזְרָתֵךְ

Nam 3:9