Hebrew word · H1487
גּוּשׁ
vegish
clod
Gush occurs only here in the Bible. Its meaning, 'clod, lump', is supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic, where gush means a clod or lump of earth.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
clod, lump
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
Gush occurs only here in the Bible. Its meaning, 'clod, lump', is supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic, where gush means a clod or lump of earth. ʿAphar is dry loose earth or dust: the material humans are formed from (Gen 2:7; 3:19), the dust thrown on the head in mourning, and the dust of the grave.
- Against the English
KJV/WEB say 'clods of dust' (literal), BSB 'encrusted with dirt', ESV 'dirt', NASB 'a crust of dirt', NIV and NLT 'scabs'. The renderings disagree over whether this is real dirt or the scabs themselves.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Job 2:8 has Job sitting 'among the ashes' scraping himself with a broken piece of pottery. In 2:12 the friends throw dust on their heads. Job 7:21 ends the speech with 'now I will lie down in the dust'. The Greek Septuagint has 'clods of earth' (bōlakas gēs).
Similar words
Where it appears
Job · 1
-
Job 7:5 וְג֣וּשׁ and clod[s] of
My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.
Here: 'And a clod', a lump or crust. This word appears only here in the Bible. With 'dust' it pictures his skin crusted over as if caked in dry earth. That may be literal dirt from sitting in the ash heap (2:8), the look of his scabs, or both.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.