faint: drained of strength and ready to collapse, usually from thirst, hunger, or hard travel
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the word for a body that has run out of strength. It describes someone worn down to the point of collapse, and the cause is almost always physical deprivation: no water, no food, or too many miles on foot. Esau staggers in from the field with it (Genesis 25:29), Gideon's three hundred are "faint yet pursuing" with it (Judges 8:4), and Amalek picks off the stragglers of Israel because they were spent this way (Deuteronomy 25:18). The natural cure in every scene is a drink or a meal or a rest, which is why the weary in Isaiah 28:12 are simply told to lie down.
The same word stretches to describe land. A "faint" land is one so dry and waterless that it leaves a traveler in exactly this exhausted state (Psalm 63:1). The land is not tired itself; it is the kind of parched country that wears a person out, so the adjective for the spent traveler is transferred to the ground that spends him.
It sits close to the ordinary word for tiredness from labor (יָגֵעַ), with which it is often paired, but it leans harder toward the collapse that comes from going without.
Nuances
1aof a person or animal: faint, exhausted, spent from thirst, hunger, or exertion
Labels the condition a body is in rather than the wearing out that produced it, which is why it describes Esau as he comes in from the field and Gideon's three hundred as they keep up the chase while spent.Gen 25:29Jdg 8:4
Marks a person other people are expected to relieve, the one who should be handed water, who is fed in the wilderness, and to whom good news comes like cold water.Job 22:72Sa 17:29Pro 25:25
Describes land as well as people, the dry and waterless country a soul thirsts in and the parched ground where a great rock throws its shade.Psa 63:1Psa 143:6Isa 32:2
Both
Both name the point where physical strength gives out in people who have pushed past their limit, and both stand in Isaiah as the exhaustion God answers, whether in young men who stumble or in the worn people offered rest.Isa 40:30Isa 28:12
Both tie that collapse to going without food and water: the metalworker who eats nothing and drinks nothing until he gives out, and the thirsty man who dreams of drinking and wakes still empty.Isa 44:12Isa 29:8
Names the tiring itself, strength draining away while effort continues, so it is the word Isaiah can deny of God, who never grows faint, and then promise away from those who wait on him and run without wearing out.Isa 40:28Isa 40:31
Carries the sting of effort poured out for nothing: nations wearing themselves out for what the fire will burn, and hunters who need not tire themselves chasing a wild donkey in heat.Jer 51:58Hab 2:13Jer 2:24
Stretches to exhaustion caused by sheer speed, used of the messenger who reaches Daniel at the hour of the evening offering after hurrying to him.Dan 9:21
ayeph in the other biblical languages
ἐκλύωGreek“to faint”the Greek verb for fainting and losing strength, used in the New Testament for the same collapse from exhaustion
What scholars say about ayeph
The standard lexica (BDB; HALOT) treat עָיֵף as an adjective meaning "faint, weary," derived from the root עיף, and note its recurrent link to deprivation of water and food and to the fatigue of travel and warfare. Both record the transferred use for land (Psalm 63:1;Isaiah 32:2), where the adjective for the exhausted person is applied to the arid country that produces such exhaustion. It stands within a small cluster of weariness terms alongside יָגֵעַ and the verb לָאָה, with עָיֵף weighted toward faintness from want rather than fatigue from toil.