fullness that satisfies: as much as it takes to meet a need, whether food eaten to the full or joy at its fullest
This word names the fullness a person arrives at, the settled state of having had enough. Most of its uses sit inside the ordinary phrase for eating "to the full", which is how Hebrew says that a meal went on until hunger stopped. It is the resting point that the verb of this family (שָׂבַע) describes as an action.
The measure belongs to the eater, not to the food. That is why the word can be tied to one particular person: someone passing through a neighbor's vineyard may eat grapes until he has had his own fill, and what Ruth carried home to Naomi is described as the leftover from hers. A different word (שָׂבָע) names the size of the supply, a harvest large enough that nobody goes short, and another (מָלֵא) describes something full the way a jar is full, filled to its limit.
Its food uses cluster in three settings:
- the grumbling memory of Egypt, where the people ate bread to the full (Exodus 16:3)
- the covenant promises that the land will yield enough to eat to the full and live without fear (Leviticus 25:19, Leviticus 26:5)
- the retelling of the manna, where God sent food with nothing lacking (Psalm 78:25)
One verse steps outside food altogether. Psalm 16:11 promises "fullness of joy" in God's presence, and because this word measures satisfaction rather than volume, the line is not a claim about a large amount of joy but about joy that leaves nothing wanting.