Hebrew word · H1741

דְּוַי

devai

illness

Faintness, sickness, loathsomeness, misery. The word appears only here and in Job 6:7, where Job says food has become "like loathsome food" to him.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

illness, languishing

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

From the study of Psalm 41:3

Range of meaning

Faintness, sickness, loathsomeness, misery. The word appears only here and in Job 6:7, where Job says food has become "like loathsome food" to him. It is related to davah, "to be faint, unwell," and davveh, "faint, sick," which is used of grief (Lamentations 1:13, 22; 5:17, "our heart is faint") and of a woman's menstrual weakness (Leviticus 15:33; 20:18).

Against the English

KJV "languishing" catches the wasting, faint quality better than most. "Illness" and "sickbed" (BSB, WEB, NIV, ESV) are accurate but flatter. The LXX "pain" (odynē) leans toward hurt rather than weakness.

Used elsewhere in the period

Its related words in Lamentations and Leviticus show a word group for bodily and emotional draining: the heart growing faint, the body weakened. In Job 6:7 it carries a note of revulsion.

Where it appears

Job · 1

  1. Job 6:7 כִּדְוֵ֥י [are] like [the] illness of

    My soul refuses to touch them; they are loathsome food to me.

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 41:3 דְּוָ֑י illness

    The LORD will sustain him on his bed of illness and restore him from his bed of sickness.

    Here: A rare word for the draining, faint, wretched state of serious illness. "A couch of faintness" means the bed a person lies on when they are too weak to get up.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.