having had enough: full or sated, whether of food, of years, or of anything else that has come in full measure
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This word describes a person who is full, not a container that is full. Hebrew has a separate adjective for a thing filled to the brim (מָלֵא); this one is the adjective beside the verb for eating one's fill (שָׂבַע), and it always looks at the point where enough has been reached and more would be too much. A well-fed guest, a man dying at the end of a long life, and a person who wants nothing further can all be described this way.
Because it names a state rather than a quantity, the word takes easily to an object: a person is full OF something. Six of its ten appearances work that way, and the same form covers gifts and griefs alike.
full of days, said of Isaac, David, and Job as each dies at the close of a long life
full of favor, said of Naphtali, whose portion is heaped with the LORD's blessing
sated with disgrace, Job's way of saying he has swallowed all the humiliation a person can hold
full of turmoil, his summary of human life: short on days, long on trouble
Those last two are why this is not simply a cheerful word. To be full is to have received the whole of something, and Hebrew is content to say that a person can be as full of shame as another is of years. Proverbs sets the two edges side by side: the well-fed appetite turns up its nose at honeycomb (Proverbs 27:7), while the one who fears the LORD lies down satisfied and is not visited by harm (Proverbs 19:23).
Nuances
1awell-fed: physically full from eating, with the appetite already met
TranslatabilityDirect
1Sa 2:5Pro 27:7
1bcontent: having enough and wanting nothing more
Pro 19:23*
1cfull of days: at the end of a life that has run its whole measure
TranslatabilityPartial
Gen 25:8*Gen 35:291Ch 29:28Job 42:17
1dfilled with what is good: having a full share of favor or blessing
Deu 33:23
1efilled with what is bitter: having had a full share of shame or trouble
Sums a person or a whole life up in one word, so the fullness is a description of what someone is rather than something that just happened to them: a life full of turmoil, a tribe full of the LORD's favor, a quiet life that rests content and untouched by harm.Job 14:1Deu 33:23Pro 19:23
Names the well fed as a standing group of people, set opposite the hungry, with no meal in view at all.1Sa 2:5
Both
Both carry the epitaph for a long and complete life, the person who dies old and "full of days", with nothing owed and nothing missing.1Ch 23:12Ch 24:15Gen 25:8Gen 35:291Ch 29:28Job 42:17
Both cover the plain fullness of a person who has eaten as much as they wanted, whether the writer is reporting the meal or describing the diner afterward.Deu 8:10Rut 2:14Pro 27:7
Both stretch past food to a bitter kind of fullness, where what a person has had more than enough of is contempt, bitterness, or shame.Psa 123:3Lam 3:15Job 10:15
Names someone who does the filling, so the fullness is a gift with a giver behind it: God fills the hungry, the poor, and every living thing.Psa 107:9Psa 132:15Psa 145:16Psa 103:5
Tells the whole movement from empty to full as something that happens: they ate, and then they had had enough.Exo 16:12Psa 78:29Neh 9:25
Carries the turn where enough becomes too much, so having one's fill is repeatedly a warning rather than a blessing: it leads to vomiting, to pride, to forgetting God, to denying him.Pro 25:16Deu 8:12Hos 13:6Pro 30:9
Can be denied, which is where the word does some of its hardest work: the eye, the money lover, the grave, and the conqueror are the things that are never filled.Ecc 1:8Ecc 5:10Pro 27:20Hab 2:5
This word describes somebody who has already had enough, so it always hangs on a person rather than naming an amount. Such a person turns away from honey, stops hiring himself out for bread because the hunger is gone, or simply lies down for the night content.Pro 27:71Sa 2:5Pro 19:23
It reaches past the stomach to a whole lifetime. When Abraham, Isaac, David, and Job die, they are called "satisfied" or "full of days", which says they got a complete life rather than one more meal.Gen 25:8Gen 35:291Ch 29:28Job 42:17
What fills the person can be bad as easily as good. One blessing calls Naphtali "satisfied with favor", while Job calls himself "full of shame" and calls every human being "full of trouble".Deu 33:23Job 10:15Job 14:1
Both
Both grow out of the same picture of having had enough, and both can name it as a plainly good thing: years when there is food for everybody, and a person who lies down for the night with nothing missing.Gen 41:29Pro 19:23
Both can turn that same fullness into a burden. The rich owner's plenty is exactly what robs him of sleep, and the person who has eaten his fill has no taste left even for the sweetest food.Ecc 5:12Pro 27:7
This is the plenty itself, a supply you can count and watch run out. Egypt gets seven years of it, the years are counted off one by one, and then they are finished.Gen 41:29Gen 41:47Gen 41:53
It is the word set opposite famine, so it belongs to a whole country's harvest rather than to one person's appetite. Joseph puts the good years beside the hungry ones that swallow them until nobody remembers there was ever enough.Gen 41:30Gen 41:31
Because it is a supply and not a person, it can be gathered, stored, and owned. It is what fills a farmer's barns, and it is the heap of goods that keeps a rich owner awake at night.Pro 3:10Ecc 5:12
Sits on a person as a label for the state they are already in: the well-fed ones who end up hiring themselves out for bread, the one so full that even honey tastes like nothing, the person who sleeps content and untouched by harm.1Sa 2:5Pro 27:7Pro 19:23
Stretches from one meal to a whole lifetime. Someone who dies "full of days" has had a life served out to him until he wanted no more of it, which is why it is said of Abraham, of Isaac, of David, and of Job at the end.Gen 25:8Gen 35:291Ch 29:28Job 42:17
Can just as easily describe a person filled up with what nobody wants. Job says he has had his fill of disgrace, and calls human life short on days and full of trouble, so the word carries no automatic comfort in it.Job 10:15Job 14:1
Both
Both work from the same picture of eating until you want no more, and both claim a need was actually met rather than merely eased. When the land yields and you eat your fill, and when the person who has eaten enough turns away from sweets, it is the same experience seen from two angles.Lev 25:19Pro 27:7
Both reach past the table to good things a person can have their fill of. God's presence holds a fullness of joy, and Naphtali is blessed as one who is satisfied with favor, so either word can describe having enough of something you cannot eat.Psa 16:11Deu 33:23
Names the fullness itself, the amount that counts as enough, rather than describing anyone. It usually turns up as the point you eat up to: bread eaten "to the full" in Egypt, bread eaten "to the full" in the land when the harvest comes in, food sent from heaven until the people had all they could hold.Exo 16:3Lev 26:5Psa 78:25
Because it is a measure, it can be someone's own particular fill, which means there can be more of it than one person needs, or too little. A worker in a vineyard may eat to his fill but carry nothing off, Ruth ate her fill and still had food left to bring home to Naomi, and the honest person gets enough for his appetite while the wicked go hungry.Deu 23:24Rut 2:18Pro 13:25
save'a in the other biblical languages
πλήρηςGreek“full”πλήρης is the Greek adjective for full, and it is what the old Greek translators used for the "full of days" wording, though on its own it lacks the note of having had enough.
Its picture is a body that has eaten enough, so it sits directly opposite hunger: the well-fed hire themselves out while the hungry stop going without, and an appetite that has had its fill turns down even honey.1Sa 2:5Pro 27:7
It is the set phrase for a life that lasted long enough and asked for no more: a man dies old and "full of days", the account closed with nothing owed him. The Greek word carries no such formula for a finished life.Gen 25:8Gen 35:291Ch 29:28Job 42:17
It is said of a person, a life, or an appetite, and never of a jar, a basket, or a crop. Where the Greek word can report how much is inside a container, this word reports what someone has taken in, whether food, favor, or grief.Deu 33:23Pro 19:23Job 10:15
Both
Both are the ordinary adjective a reader meets as "full of", and both stretch past physical quantity to whatever saturates a person: Naphtali is full of favor, Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit.Deu 33:23Luk 4:1
Either word can report a filling nobody wants, so "full" is not by itself a compliment in either language: a man's short life is full of trouble, and a shouting crowd is full of rage.Job 14:1Job 10:15Act 19:28Act 13:10
Both can say that something has reached its full measure with nothing lacking, which is why one English word serves for each: a lifetime that reached its whole count of years, and a reward paid without shortfall.Gen 25:82Jn 1:8
It counts physical contents, which the Hebrew word never does: baskets packed with the leftover bread after a crowd has eaten, and grain filled out ripe in the ear. Even in the feeding scenes the crowd's satisfaction is carried by a different Greek word, and "full" is left to describe the baskets.Mat 14:20Mat 15:37Mrk 8:19Mrk 4:28
It is the standard way the early church described a settled character: a person so pervaded by God's Spirit, or by grace, faith, wisdom, and generous deeds, that it is what people know them for. This is a lasting quality, not a mood of the moment.Luk 4:1Jhn 1:14Act 6:3Act 6:5Act 6:8Act 7:55Act 9:36Act 11:24
What fills a person can be something that covers or grips them with no thought of appetite at all: a man is "full" of a skin disease that has spread over his body. The Hebrew word could not be used this way, since it always assumes a want that has been met.Luk 5:12
It can measure a payment or an amount as complete, nothing held back, so believers are warned to make sure they receive their reward in full.2Jn 1:8
χορτάζωGreek“to feed”χορτάζω is the common New Testament verb for being fed to the full, so it covers the eating side of this word but not its wider use for a full life or a full share of grief.
Describes a settled condition, so it can sum up a whole life as having run its full measure: the standard way of saying a person died old having had enough of living.Gen 25:8Gen 35:291Ch 29:28Job 42:17
Regularly names what the person is full of, and the same wording covers what is welcome and what is not: a full share of favor, a bellyful of disgrace, a lifetime of turmoil.Deu 33:23Job 10:15Job 14:1
Carries a warning inside the fullness: the well-fed appetite turns up its nose at honeycomb, and those who once had plenty end up hiring themselves out for bread.Pro 27:71Sa 2:5
Can describe a quiet contentment with no eating in view at all, of a person who lies down wanting nothing further and untouched by harm.Pro 19:23
Both
Each is the ordinary word in its own language for having had all one wants of food, so that the appetite is met and nothing more is desired, and English reaches for the same renderings, "full" and "satisfied", for either one.Pro 27:7Mrk 6:42
Both set fullness directly against hunger and make their point by the pair, one voice contrasting the full with the starving and the other saying he has learned both.1Sa 2:5Php 4:12
Both move from the stomach to things nobody eats, so being satisfied becomes a way of speaking about any deep longing that has been met in full.Deu 33:23Mat 5:6
Names the event rather than the condition: the moment hunger gives way to fullness, which is why it is the word the feeding stories use for what happened once the crowd had eaten.Mat 14:20Mrk 6:42Luk 9:17Mrk 8:8
Because it is something done to people, it raises the question of who will supply the food, and it can be said as an empty wish when nobody actually does.Mat 15:33Mrk 8:4Jas 2:16
Keeps its old link with feeding animals, so it sits comfortably with pig pods, table scraps, and scavenging birds gorged on flesh.Luk 15:16Luk 16:21Rev 19:21
Can be spoken as a promise to people who are still hungry, pointing to a fullness that lies ahead of them rather than describing one already reached.Mat 5:6Luk 6:21
What scholars say about save'a
The standard lexica treat שָׂבֵעַ as the verbal adjective of the root שׂבע and describe two usage patterns. Used by itself it means sated with food (1 Samuel 2:5;Proverbs 27:7) or, of a person's condition generally, content (Proverbs 19:23). Bound to a following noun it means "sated with, having a full measure of", and this accounts for six of the ten occurrences (BDB, s.v. שָׂבֵעַ; HALOT, s.v. שָׂבֵעַ; DCH, s.v. שָׂבֵעַ). The bound usage is neutral as to whether the filling is a benefit (רָצוֹן, Deuteronomy 33:23) or an affliction (קָלוֹן, Job 10:15; רֹגֶז, Job 14:1), which is why the lexica gloss it both "sated with favour" and "sated with shame". The phrase שְׂבַע יָמִים belongs to the patriarchal and royal death notices (Genesis 35:29;1 Chronicles 29:28;Job 42:17) and connotes a fulfilled rather than merely a lengthy lifespan; TDOT and TWOT treat it under the root's idioms of completion. At Genesis 25:8 the Masoretic Text has the adjective absolutely, whereas the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint (πλήρης ἡμερῶν) supply יָמִים; BDB nevertheless reads the absolute form there as the same idiom, and the parallel wording of Genesis 35:29 and Job 42:17 supports that.