to load: to pile a weight onto a back, or to take that weight up and carry it
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
Behind this verb there is always a load and something that has to bear it: sacks going onto a donkey, rubble on a workman's shoulder, a whole nation staggering under what its king demands. Hebrew has wider words for lifting and carrying, such as the general verb נָשָׂא, and a word for straining under weight, סָבַל. This one keeps the freight itself in view, and it usually names the moment the weight changes hands.
The same verb faces three different directions depending on where the speaker is standing:
someone piles the load onto a bearer, as Joseph's brothers do to their donkeys and as Solomon did to Israel
someone takes a load up and moves under it, as the wall builders in Nehemiah and the nations in Zechariah's vision do
someone or something simply is the load being carried, as Babylon's idols are and as Israel is
Isaiah 46 turns that last use into an argument. In the first verse Babylon's gods are cargo, strapped onto tired animals hauling them out of a doomed city. Two verses later God tells Israel that he has carried them since the womb, using the same word again. Idols are a weight their worshipers must haul; the God of Israel is the one who does the hauling.
Nuances
1ato pile goods onto a pack animal
TranslatabilityDirect
Gen 44:13Neh 13:15
1bto lay a heavy load on people, as a ruler pressing demands on his subjects
1Ki 12:112Ch 10:11
1cto take a load up and carry it
Neh 4:17(11)*Psa 68:19(20)*Zec 12:3
Psa 68:19
How to read the verb in Psalm 68:19: whether God loads gifts onto his people day by day, or carries their load for them.
majorityGod bears the load for his people day by day. The verb keeps its usual sense of taking up a burden, and the phrase "for us" marks the ones on whose behalf he carries it.; HALOT, s.v. עמס; Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60-150 (Continental Commentary)
minorityGod loads his people up day by day, with the thing loaded left unstated and understood as blessing.; BDB, s.v. עמס
1dto be loaded up: said of the cargo itself, or of the one being carried
keeps a living bearer in view, since the weight always ends up on a back, whether an animal's or a person'sGen 44:13Isa 46:1
reaches past freight to what a ruler demands of his people, so the same word covers taxes and forced labor1Ki 12:112Ch 10:11
Both
both name the plain act of putting cargo onto a carrierGen 44:13Neh 13:15
Only load
in modern English the word more often suggests filling a vehicle, a container, or a computer, which drops the picture of something straining under weight
keeps the weight itself in the picture rather than the journey, so what is carried is always a burdenZec 12:3Isa 46:3
Both
both cover taking a burden up and moving while under itNeh 4:17Isa 46:3
Only carry
English "carry" says nothing about weight and stretches to things with none at all, such as carrying a tune or carrying a rumor
“lade”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“bear”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“lay upon”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How amas differs from similar Hebrew words
נָשָׂאthe broad verb for lifting and carrying almost anything, including a hand, a face, or guilt; this word is narrower and always has an actual load in view.
Keeps the focus on where the weight is put rather than on who picks it up, so the load ends up on a donkey's back or on a people's shoulders because someone else placed it there.Gen 44:13Neh 13:151Ki 12:11
The load is usually more than the carrier can happily take: a yoke a king promises to make heavier, idols that wear out the animals hauling them, a stone that injures whoever tries to shift it.2Ch 10:11Isa 46:1Zec 12:3
Because the word is about who puts the weight where, it can be turned into praise, with God as the one doing the loading day after day.Psa 68:19
Both
Both name the ordinary labor of hauling something heavy, and they stand side by side in the account of the wall builders who kept working with a load in one hand and a weapon in the other.Neh 4:17
Both can be said of God rather than of a laborer, in one sentence that pictures him taking up his people before they were born and still carrying them when they are old.Isa 46:3
Reaches far past cargo into gestures of the body, where a person lifts his eyes to look at something or lifts his voice to weep.Gen 18:2Gen 21:16Gen 29:11
Can take up guilt rather than goods, which is how Hebrew says "forgive" (the wrong is lifted off the offender) and also how it says a guilty person "bears" his own punishment.Gen 50:17Exo 10:17Gen 4:13
Covers the plain act of picking something up and taking it along, with no hint that the thing is heavy or unwelcome.Gen 27:3Gen 45:19Gen 31:17
Raises people as well as objects: lifting a man's head is a picture of restoring him to favor and standing.Gen 40:13Gen 40:20
סָבַלto bear up under a heavy load, with the strain of holding it; this word is about the load being put on or taken up in the first place.
It names the moment the weight goes on, the loading itself rather than the haul that follows. Joseph's brothers load their grain onto their donkeys and set off home; traders load donkeys with wine, grapes and figs on the Sabbath; Jerusalem becomes a stone that gashes everyone who tries to heave it up.Gen 44:13Neh 13:15Zec 12:3
Because it is about putting weight on, it can name one party laying a load on another, and so the harshness of a ruler. Rehoboam's people protest that his father laid a heavy yoke on them, and he answers that he will add to it.1Ki 12:112Ch 10:11
It can describe what has been loaded up, so a thing or a person is spoken of as cargo: the images of Babylon ride strapped to worn out animals, and Israel is a load that has been on God since before it was born.Isa 46:1Isa 46:3
It can leave the load unnamed, which is why one famous line reads two ways: the daily loading in the Psalm has been rendered "loads us with benefits" (God piling good gifts on his people) and also "bears our burden" (God taking their weight onto himself).Psa 68:19
Both
Both belong first to the ordinary world of pack animals and porters, where the weight is real and physical: donkeys loaded up for a journey, and cattle heavy under what they carry.Neh 13:15Psa 144:14
Both are used in Isaiah's mockery of lifeless gods, which have to be moved by the people who worship them: the images of Babylon are loaded onto animals as freight, and an idol is hoisted onto the shoulder and carried to a spot where it then stands and cannot move.Isa 46:1Isa 46:7
Both can make that same weight an image of God's care for his people, God as the one with the load on him: Israel has been on him from the womb, and he says he will go on holding it up into their old age.Isa 46:3Isa 46:4
Both can make weight stand for servitude, what a stronger party puts on a weaker one: a king's heavy yoke laid on his subjects, and a shoulder bent to carry until the carrier is reduced to forced labour.1Ki 12:11Gen 49:15
Its picture is the load already up and still being held, not the moment it went on. God promises that into old age and grey hair he will keep on bearing his people; the men who hoist an idol onto the shoulder have to hold it there and walk with it; Issachar bends his shoulder to carry and ends up in forced labour.Isa 46:4Isa 46:7Gen 49:15
It reaches beyond freight to what cannot be set on a back at all: the pain, sickness and guilt of other people, taken on and held as one's own. The servant carries our sorrows and bears the wrongdoing of many, and a ruined generation says it is carrying the guilt of its fathers.Isa 53:4Isa 53:11Lam 5:7
It can turn around and describe the one under the weight rather than the work of carrying, and can even make the carrier into the weight: cattle heavy with young, and the grasshopper that drags itself along as old age closes in.Psa 144:14Ecc 12:5
amas in the other biblical languages
φορτίζωGreek“to burden”the Greek verb for loading someone down, used of people weighed down and of teachers who pile demands on others; it matches the harsher side of this word rather than the everyday loading of a donkey.
It does the plain, physical work of loading cargo: brothers strapping sacks of grain onto their donkeys, traders loading animals on a rest day, and builders hauling materials with one hand while holding a weapon in the other.Gen 44:13Neh 13:15Neh 4:17
It can have God as the one doing the loading, and the result is help rather than hardship. He takes up his people's weight day after day, and he says he has been carrying them since before they were born, which is the opposite of a burden imposed on someone.Psa 68:19Isa 46:3
It sets up a mocking contrast between gods that must be hauled and the God who hauls: idols are strapped onto tired animals as so much freight, while the living God is the one carrying.Isa 46:1
It also covers a weight a person picks up by choice and is injured by, as when Jerusalem is pictured as a stone that gashes everyone who tries to hoist it.Zec 12:3
Both
Both describe someone in authority putting a heavy load onto other people who then have to carry it. A king boasts that his father loaded the nation with a heavy yoke, and religious experts are charged with loading people with loads that are hard to carry.1Ki 12:112Ch 10:11Luk 11:46
Both can name the settled state of being loaded rather than the single act of loading, so the word describes the carrier: beasts already piled with idols, a people already carried from birth, and those rendered "heavy laden" who are told to come for rest.Isa 46:1Isa 46:3Mat 11:28
In the New Testament the loading is never physical freight. Nothing is put on an animal or a cart; the weight is always demands laid on a person's life, so the word describes how people feel under religious obligation rather than how goods are moved.Mat 11:28Luk 11:46
Both uses put the loading itself in question rather than simply reporting it. The people who do the loading are rebuked for piling on others what they will not lift a finger to carry, and the people already loaded down are invited to come and be given rest.Luk 11:46Mat 11:28
βαστάζωGreek“to carry”the Greek verb for carrying or bearing something, closer to the side of this word where a load is taken up and moved under than to the side where a load is imposed.
Its home setting is loading up a pack animal, with the weight on the act of piling the cargo on rather than on the journey that follows: Joseph's brothers load their donkeys, and Sabbath traders load theirs with wine, grapes and figs.Gen 44:13Neh 13:15
Describes a king piling weight onto his subjects, in Rehoboam's boast that his father loaded them with a heavy yoke and that he will add to it.1Ki 12:112Ch 10:11
Isaiah turns the word against idol worship by using it both ways in one breath: gods that have to be strapped onto worn out animals, set against a God who has carried his people since before they were born.Isa 46:1Isa 46:3
Can describe heaving a weight that wounds whoever lifts it, in the picture of Jerusalem as a stone that gashes every nation trying to pick it up.Zec 12:3
Because it can mean either putting a load on or taking a load up, one famous line stays open: English Bibles divide over whether God daily loads his people with good things or daily carries their load for them.Psa 68:19
Both
Both name the plain physical work of taking up a load and moving with it: the burden carriers rebuilding Nehemiah's wall, and a man crossing Jerusalem with a water jar.Neh 4:17Mrk 14:13
Both stretch that picture into what people are made to put up with, and both reach for the same image of a yoke too heavy for the neck it is laid on.1Ki 12:11Act 15:10
Both are used of the strong holding up the weak, whether God carrying his people from birth or believers carrying the failings of those who cannot manage alone.Isa 46:3Rom 15:1
Reaches past carrying to carrying off, so the thing is gone from where it stood: a crowd scoops up stones to throw, and Mary supposes the gardener has taken the body away.Jhn 10:31Jhn 20:15
Can shade into helping yourself to what you were trusted to carry, which is why John says Judas kept the money box and took what was put into it.Jhn 12:6
Covers putting up with people and with hard news, not only with weight: a church that will not tolerate wicked men, and disciples who can only take in so much for now.Rev 2:2Jhn 16:12
Used for carrying something on your own body as a public sign of whose you are: Paul carries the scars of Jesus on him, and is chosen to carry that name to the nations.Gal 6:17Act 9:15
What scholars say about amas
The standard lexica treat עמס as a single root with a narrow semantic field: in the simple stem "to load (a beast), to carry a load", and in the causative "to lay a load upon" (BDB; HALOT; DCH). The root is well attested in the cognate languages for loading and burdening, and no lexicon posits a homonym. Two long-standing cruxes account for most of the discussion. Psalm 68:20 (English 68:19) יַעֲמָס־לָנוּ is construed either as "he loads (gifts) upon us", with an unexpressed object supplied by the older versional tradition, or as "he bears (the load) for us", taking לָנוּ as a dative of advantage; the second reading now dominates modern critical translations and commentary (Kraus). Nehemiah 4:11 (English 4:17) עֹמְשִׂים shows an anomalous spelling of the second radical and stands in loose apposition to הַנֹּשְׂאִים בַּסֶּבֶל, generating proposals that range from a distributive reading of the participle to deletion as a scribal gloss. Isaiah 46:1-3 exploits the verb rhetorically, setting the passive participle of idol-cargo strapped to draft animals against the identical participle applied to Israel borne by YHWH from the womb, a contrast commentators on Deutero-Isaiah treat as the polemical hinge of the oracle (Blenkinsopp).