what work brings back: the pay, reward, or payback earned by labor, and at times the labor itself
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
This word sits at the point where work turns into pay. Most often it names what the working brings back: the wages owed to a hired man at the end of the day, or the settled return God brings on a life or a mission. Less often it looks the other way and names the working itself, the effort a person spends and expects to be answered for.
Because it is simply what work comes back as, it runs in both directions. It can be a reward, as when God promises to give his people what is theirs in faithfulness, and it can be a reckoning, as when a psalmist asks that this be what his accusers get from the LORD. Nothing in the word itself says whether the return is welcome.
The surest guide to which end a verse has in view is the word standing next to it.
When the text says there is a wage (שָׂכָר) for your labor, the pay is named separately, so this word has to be the labor (Jeremiah 31:16;2 Chronicles 15:7).
When it says God's wage is with him and this is carried before him, the two words stand in parallel, so this one is the payment (Isaiah 40:10;Isaiah 62:11).
When the plural is set beside the work of God's hands (מַעֲשֶׂה), it means deeds, the things he has actually done (Psalm 28:5).
Its close relative from the same root (פֹּעַל) leans the opposite way. That word starts from the deed and only edges into wages; this one starts from the pay and only edges back into the labor.
Nuances
1awages: the pay a worker has earned and is owed for work already done
TranslatabilityDirect
Lev 19:13Pro 10:16*Pro 11:18*Ezk 29:20
1brecompense: the return God brings on a life or a mission, whether reward or reckoning
runs in both directions, so the same word names what the wicked have coming as easily as what the faithful receivePsa 109:20Isa 65:7
Both
both name what comes back to a person because of what they didIsa 40:10Isa 62:11
Only reward
the English word almost always sounds positive, a prize handed to someone who did well
“recompense”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“work”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“labor”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“deeds”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How pe'ullah differs from similar Hebrew words
פֹּעַלthe matching noun from the very same root, weighted toward the deed or act that gets done, where this word is weighted toward the pay or payback that the doing earns
Names the wages or hire owed for labor, the payment a worker has coming, not the act of working.Lev 19:13Pro 10:16
Names recompense as a settled return God assigns, the reward that comes back for what was done.Psa 109:20Jer 31:16
Both
Both grow from the same root for doing and making, and English routinely renders each as "work," which is exactly where readers blur them.Psa 104:232Ch 15:7
Names the deed or act itself, the thing that gets done, and most often God's own mighty acts.Deu 32:4Psa 44:1
Weighs a person's conduct as something watched and judged, the doing rather than any payoff it earns.Pro 20:11Job 34:11
שָׂכָרthe plain word for hire or wages, the agreed pay a worker is promised; this word is the return that work yields, which can be a reward or a reckoning and is not fixed in advance
Names the doing itself, the work someone performs, with no payment in view at all: the deeds people do, the labor a righteous person puts in, the dishonest work a wicked person turns out.Psa 17:4Pro 10:16Pro 11:18
Can name what God himself does, the working of his hands, which a word for pay could never carry.Psa 28:5
Can be a reckoning rather than a payment, so it covers what comes back to a wrongdoer: the curse that lands on false accusers, the earlier deeds God measures back into the guilty person's lap.Psa 109:20Isa 65:7
In the promise "there is a reward for your work," this is the word for the work that gets paid for, while the pay itself is named by the other word.2Ch 15:7Jer 31:16
Can be a worker's due left in God's keeping rather than collected from an employer: the servant who feels he has worn himself out for nothing still says his return rests with God.Isa 49:4
Both
Both name what a person's labor earns back, and the prophets stack them as a matched pair in one promise, so English has to reach for two near-identical words such as "reward" and "recompense".Isa 40:10Isa 62:11
Both name the pay a hired worker has coming, and both stand in commands that it not be held back: earnings that must not stay overnight with the employer, pay handed over before sundown, and God's own case against those who cheat a hired worker.Lev 19:13Deu 24:15Mal 3:5
Both can name the payment for one and the same job: Ezekiel says the Babylonian army got no pay for its long siege of Tyre and will be given Egypt as its pay, then calls Egypt the due for the work it performed.Ezk 29:18Ezk 29:19Ezk 29:20
Both are used of what God pays out, not only of what a human employer owes: the tithe given to the Levites as their pay for serving at the tent, and the return God promises to hand over faithfully to his people.Num 18:31Isa 61:8
Is the figure bargained and named in advance between the one hiring and the one hired: Laban told to set his own price, a nursing woman promised payment, a king offering to pay for another king's woodcutters, a shepherd demanding his pay and having thirty pieces of silver weighed out.Gen 30:28Exo 2:91Ki 5:6Zec 11:12
Covers a fee for the use of something or someone hired out, not only a person's own labor: the fare paid for passage on a ship, the hire that came with a hired animal, the earnings of man and beast side by side.Jon 1:3Exo 22:15Zec 8:10
Stretches to a gift or benefit called pay where no job was contracted for it: God promising to be Abram's great reward, children called a reward, the dead said to have no further reward.Gen 15:1Psa 127:3Ecc 9:5
Sets a value on the effort of working together, naming the good return two companions get that one alone would not.Ecc 4:9
מַשְׂכֹּרֶתa narrow word for a servant's or hired hand's wage packet, used only of ordinary employment; this word ranges from a day laborer's pay to what God brings back on a whole nation
It can name the work or the deeds themselves rather than the pay, which is why a second Hebrew word has to supply the reward in the promise "there is a reward for your work." It stretches all the way to what people do in general and to what the LORD himself does.2Ch 15:7Jer 31:16Psa 17:4Psa 28:5
It names what God pays back to the guilty, punishment measured out as though it were wages earned. The psalmist asks that this be the settlement his accusers get from the LORD, and Isaiah has God measuring the payment for past sins straight into the offenders' laps.Psa 109:20Isa 65:7
In the proverbs it is what a whole way of life earns as its outcome, not a sum any employer hands over: the upright person's return is life, while the wicked person produces a payoff that will not hold.Pro 10:16Pro 11:18
It scales up to national payment, with God handing Egypt over to a foreign army as compensation for the campaign it had waged on his behalf. No household bargain is in view, and the currency is a country.Ezk 29:20
Both
Both name the pay a worker has coming for service done for someone else, and both are used where withholding or shortchanging it would be a real wrong.Gen 29:15Lev 19:13
Both can name the reward God himself gives for faithful service, so that the one who has worked looks to him rather than to any human employer for what is owed.Rut 2:12Isa 49:4
This is the word for terms of employment that two people talk over, settle on, and can change. Laban asks Jacob to name it, then alters it again and again, and Jacob counts the changes against him. The other word never turns up in that kind of bargaining scene.Gen 29:15Gen 31:7Gen 31:41
Wherever it appears it sits on the payment side of the exchange: the sum owed, never the labor performed. Jacob describes twenty years of service with ordinary verbs and saves this word for the amount Laban kept adjusting, and when Boaz blesses Ruth the Hebrew names her labor with a separate word and reserves this one for the reward she is to receive in full.Gen 31:41Rut 2:12
גְּמוּלrequital, what someone has coming for what they did, usually with a settling of accounts in view; this word can carry that same payback but starts from the ordinary idea of earned pay
Means ordinary pay owed to a worker, a plain debt for hours put in, with a deadline attached to handing it over.Lev 19:13Ezk 29:20
Can name the work itself rather than what the work brings in, which is why a separate word for the reward sits next to it in the same sentence.2Ch 15:7Jer 31:16Psa 28:5Psa 17:4
Both
Both name what God hands back to someone for the way that person has lived, and both turn up in prayers asking him to close the account.Psa 28:4Lam 3:64Psa 109:20Isa 65:7
Both carry the wisdom saying that a way of life produces its own return, so conduct comes back to the person who practiced it.Pro 12:14Pro 10:16Pro 11:18
Neither word is fixed to reward or to punishment. Each takes its color from what was done, so the same word can be good news or a threat.Pro 19:17Isa 3:11Isa 40:10Isa 62:11
Names payback shaped to match the deed and sent straight back at the doer, so the same treatment lands on the head of the one who dealt it out.Oba 1:15Jol 3:7Psa 137:8
Can name the good someone has already done for you, so what is in view is a debt of gratitude rather than anything earned by labor.Jdg 9:162Ch 32:25Psa 103:2
Stands beside the word for vengeance as a name for the day God settles his account with his enemies, a reckoning announced before it arrives.Isa 35:4Jer 51:6Isa 59:18
יְגִיעַwearying toil and the produce it yields, the sweat of a person's own hands and the crops or goods that come of it; this word is the pay or payback that labor earns rather than the toiling or its harvest
Names the wage owed to a hired worker, the payment that must not be held back.Lev 19:13
Names recompense as the deserved payback for conduct, good or evil, and frequently the reward God brings with him.Isa 40:10Jer 31:16Pro 11:18Psa 109:20
Both
Both can name the material return a person gets from labor, the earnings that work brings.Ezk 23:29Ezk 29:20
Names the wearying labor itself, the sweat and effort of a person's own hands.Gen 31:42Job 39:11Isa 55:2
Shifts from the toil to the concrete produce it yields (crops, goods, wealth), often as the thing eaten or seized by others.Deu 28:33Psa 128:2Psa 78:46Jer 20:5
מַעֲשֶׂהthe everyday, all-purpose word for a work, a deed, or a made thing; this word only means deeds in a few poetic lines, and elsewhere means what the deeds earn
It can be the pay itself, the wage a hired worker has earned and must be handed before nightfall, or a land given to a king as his fee for a campaign.Lev 19:13Ezk 29:20
It is what God brings with him to hand out, the settlement he carries when he comes, so English Bibles render it "recompense" or "reward".Isa 40:10Isa 49:4Isa 61:8Isa 62:11
It can be payment in the other direction, what an enemy has coming to him, an account settled against those who accuse the innocent.Psa 109:20Isa 65:7
Even when it does mean work, it keeps the return in view: work that will be paid for, honest earning that leads to life, or a gain that turns out to be false.2Ch 15:7Pro 10:16Pro 11:18
Both
Both can name what God has done, his acts in the world, and Psalm 28:5 sets them side by side in one line about people who never look at them.Psa 28:5
Both can name what people do, the record of a life that God takes account of, whether the doing is wrong or right.Gen 20:9Psa 17:4
Both can mean plain human labor, the effort of hands at daily work.Gen 5:29Jer 31:16
Names the finished thing as well as the making of it, so it is the ordinary word for a craftsman's product: engraved stone, a bronze stand, or tablets said to be God's own handiwork.Exo 28:11Exo 32:161Ki 7:28
It is the standard phrase for an idol, "the work of human hands", which exposes the image as a manufactured object rather than a god.Deu 4:28Psa 115:4Isa 2:8Jer 1:16
It can be a task laid on someone by another, the labor a master demands and a slave has to go back to.Exo 5:4Exo 5:13
It can sweep up the whole of human activity at once, everything that gets done in the world, which is why Ecclesiastes surveys life with this word.Ecc 1:14Ecc 3:17Ecc 8:9
It names the settled customs of a nation, the way a people habitually lives, which Israel is warned not to copy.Lev 18:3Psa 106:35Mic 6:16
pe'ullah in the other biblical languages
μισθόςGreek“wage”the Greek word for a wage or reward that covers both the hired worker's pay and the reward God gives, so it lands on the same two-sided idea
Can name the doing itself rather than the pay for it: the things the LORD has done, which people refuse to notice, and the deeds human beings get up to. The Greek word never means the labour, only what the labour earns.Psa 28:5Psa 17:4
Because it can mean the work, it stands beside a separate word for the pay: "there is a wage for your work" needs both words, one for the effort and one for what the effort brings in.2Ch 15:7Jer 31:16
Holds the deed and the payback for it in one word, so it can carry punishment: what people have done is measured back into their own laps, and it is what the LORD hands out to those who accuse the innocent.Isa 65:7Psa 109:20
Both
Both are the plain word for a hired worker's pay, and both stand in a demand that it be handed over on time: the day labourer must be paid before nightfall, and pay held back by an employer cries out against him.Lev 19:13Jas 5:4Mat 20:8
Both name the settlement the LORD carries with him when he arrives to put accounts right, and the Greek picks up the Hebrew phrasing almost word for word: "my pay is with me, to give to each one as his work deserves" answers the older "his recompense is with him."Isa 40:10Isa 62:11Rev 22:12
Both can name the pay that wrongdoing earns, and both treat it as pay that turns out worthless: the wicked earns a wage that is a lie, and Balaam is the man who loved the pay that wrongdoing brings, the money that bought Judas a field.Pro 11:182Pe 2:15Act 1:18
Names a reward kept safe with God for what was done quietly, and it is the very thing lost when the doing is staged for onlookers: those who make sure they are seen have collected their pay already and have nothing left to come. Only this word gets used that way, as a pay packet that is either banked in heaven or spent on the spot.Mat 6:1Mat 6:2Mat 6:5Mat 6:16Mat 5:12Luk 6:23
Names a pay that can be earned in full or forfeited by the same person, sized to what each one has built and warned about as something a careless believer may lose. The Hebrew word is never at risk like this; it simply is what a person has done or is owed.1Co 3:81Co 3:142Jn 1:8
Names a pay a worker can waive: Paul reasons that if he preaches because he must, he has no claim to collect, and he then refuses the pay he is entitled to. This is the word for an entitlement someone can choose not to take up.1Co 9:171Co 9:18
ἔργονGreek“work”the broad Greek word for a work or deed, matching this word only where it means the labor done or the things someone has done
Can mean the pay itself, the money or property owed a worker for a job already done, which the Greek word never means.Lev 19:13Ezk 29:20
Names the return God brings on a life or a mission, whether the reward he carries with him or the reckoning he measures out.Isa 40:10Isa 62:11Psa 109:20Isa 65:7
Folds the labor and its payoff into one word, so a single Hebrew word can mean both the work put in and what that work has coming.Jer 31:162Ch 15:7Pro 10:16
Both
Both name the deeds a person has actually done, taken as the measure of the life behind them.Psa 17:4Mat 5:16
Both can name God's own acts, the works people are faulted for ignoring or moved to praise him for.Psa 28:5Rev 15:3
English Bibles put "work" over both, so a reader meets one English word in each testament and cannot see that the Hebrew often means the pay the work earns while the Greek means the doing itself.2Ch 15:71Co 15:58
Names a job someone is handed and expected to finish, the assignment or mission that occupies a whole life. The Hebrew word never names a commission like this.Mrk 13:34Act 13:2Jhn 17:4
Reaches past the doing to the thing made, so the heavens or a handmade idol can be called someone's "work".Heb 1:10Act 7:41
Hardened into a set category in the New Testament's argument about how a person is put right with God, where "works" are weighed against trusting him. The Hebrew word carries nothing of that discussion.Rom 3:28Gal 2:16Eph 2:9
What scholars say about pe'ullah
BDB divides the noun into work or deed and the wage of work, with the second group taking most of the occurrences; HALOT distinguishes work or labour, wages, reward or recompense, and (in the plural) deeds; DCH follows a similar fourfold split. The lexica agree that the range moves from the activity to its remuneration rather than reflecting two unrelated roots, and treatments of the root p-'-l in TDOT and NIDOTTE note the same movement across the noun pair po'al and pe'ullah, with pe'ullah the member weighted toward the return. The disputed cases are individual verses rather than the sense inventory. At Isaiah 65:7 the older English versions render the noun as the people's former works, while recent commentators (Blenkinsopp) take it as the requital measured out for those works, the reading favoured by the repayment language of the preceding verse. At Isaiah 49:4 the parallel with mishpat has led most recent translators (Goldingay and Payne) to render recompense rather than the older work. Waltke defends the wage sense at both Proverbs 10:16 and 11:18 on the strength of the parallel terms tevu'ah and sekher.
Sources
BDB, s.v. פְּעֻלָּהlexicon
HALOT, s.v. פְּעֻלָּהlexicon
DCH, s.v. פְּעֻלָּהlexicon
TDOT, s.v. פָּעַלtheological-dictionary
NIDOTTE, s.v. פעלtheological-dictionary
Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1-15, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004)commentary
Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56-66, Anchor Yale Bible 19B (New York: Doubleday, 2003)commentary
John Goldingay and David Payne, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40-55, ICC (London: T&T Clark, 2006)commentary