StrongerBible

qavav

קָבַב

HebrewH6895“curse, denounce”

Appears 14 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Num 22:11Num 22:17Num 23:8 (2×)Num 23:11Num 23:13Num 23:25 (2×)Num 23:27Num 24:10Job 3:8Job 5:3Pro 11:26Pro 24:24
Root family
Word studykah-VAHVverb

What qavav means

to curse: to pronounce a solemn, binding curse of harm against a person

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is a strong word for cursing. It does not mean casual swearing or foul language; it names the deliberate act of speaking a curse out loud so that harm will fall on its target. The curse is treated as effective, a spoken doom that does real damage once it is uttered.

More than half its appearances come from one story: the prophet Balaam, hired by King Balak of Moab to curse Israel (Numbers 22 to 24). Balak keeps demanding a curse, and Balaam keeps discovering he cannot deliver one, because a curse spoken against people God has blessed has no power. The tension of that whole account turns on this verb, repeated again and again as Balak insists and Balaam refuses.

Outside that story the word carries the same weight in everyday life. Proverbs warns that people will curse the man who hoards grain in a famine, and that whole nations will curse the judge who calls the guilty innocent. Job pictures skilled cursers ready to lay a curse on a day itself. In every case the curse is a public, spoken pronouncement meant to bring ruin, the mirror opposite of a blessing.

Hebrew has several words in this family, and they overlap: אָרַר is the broad, common word for putting someone under a curse, קָלַל leans toward treating a person as contemptible, זָעַם is the angry denunciation, and נָקַב is a near-twin so close that scholars debate whether it is the same root. Against them, this verb is the formal, potent pronouncement of doom.

Num 22:11Num 22:17Num 23:8 (2×)Num 23:11Num 23:13Num 23:25 (2×)Num 23:27Num 24:10Job 3:8Job 5:3Pro 11:26Pro 24:24

What scholars say about qavav

The verb קבב I is universally glossed "to curse, utter a curse against" (BDB; HALOT), and its sense is not in dispute. It occurs 14 times, heavily concentrated (8 of 12 verses) in the Balaam pericope of Numbers 22 to 24, with the remainder in wisdom and lament poetry (Job 3:8; 5:3; Prov 11:26; 24:24). It belongs to the Hebrew field of curse verbs studied classically by H. C. Brichto, alongside אָרַר, קלל, נקב, and זעם, where it functions as the performative pronouncement of malediction over against ברך "to bless." The principal scholarly question is its relationship to נקב (H5344): the two appear in adjacent and even parallel positions within the Balaam narrative (e.g. Num 23:8, אקב // קבה), and lexica note the phonetic and semantic overlap, some treating them as byforms of a single root and others as distinct roots that converged in meaning. This is a question of derivation and identity, not of sense, so the meaning of קבב remains settled.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. קבבlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. קבבlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. קבבdictionary
  • Herbert Chanan Brichto, The Problem of "Curse" in the Hebrew Bible (SBL Monograph Series 13; Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1963)monograph

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

All attested forms of קָבַב

qal imperative 2ms

קָבָ, קָבְ

Num 22:11, Num 22:17, Num 23:13

qal imperfect 3mp

יִקְּבֻ

Job 3:8, Pro 11:26, Pro 24:24

qal infinitive-construct construct

קֹב

Num 23:11, Num 23:25, Num 24:10

qal consecutive-imperfect 1cs

וָאֶקּוֹב

Job 5:3

qal consecutive-perfect 2ms

וְקַבֹּת

Num 23:27

qal imperfect 1cs

אֶקֹּב

Num 23:8

qal imperfect 2ms

תִקֳּבֶ

Num 23:25

qal perfect 3ms

קַבֹּ

Num 23:8