Hebrew word · H2054

וָזָר

vazar

guilty

Found only here, so its meaning has to be worked out. (1) "Guilty, laden with guilt" (BDB, HALOT), from a root w-z-r known in Arabic: wazara, "to bear a burden"; wizr, "burden, sin, guilt". (2) Read as the conjunction wa- ("and") plus zar, "strange, foreign, other": "and strange".

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) guilty, burdened with guilt, strange

2) criminal, guilty

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 Proverbs 21:8

Range of meaning

Found only here, so its meaning has to be worked out. (1) "Guilty, laden with guilt" (BDB, HALOT), from a root w-z-r known in Arabic: wazara, "to bear a burden"; wizr, "burden, sin, guilt". (2) Read as the conjunction wa- ("and") plus zar, "strange, foreign, other": "and strange".

Against the English

Most modern versions (BSB, WEB, NIV, ESV, NASB, NLT) say "guilty". KJV has "froward and strange", following reading (2). YLT's "vile" is a guess somewhere between the two.

How it drifted

KJV's "strange" does not come from English drift. It follows an older way of dividing the word. Modern readers then hear "strange" as "odd", which is a second step away (see drift).

Used elsewhere in the period

The Arabic cognate is well established. The Qur'an uses wizr for the burden of sin ("no bearer of burdens bears another's burden", Q 6:164), and the title wazir (vizier, "burden-bearer") comes from the same root. The Vulgate's aliena ("strange, alien") shows that reading (2) was already current in late antiquity.

Where it appears

Proverbs · 1

  1. Proverbs 21:8 וָזָ֑ר guilty

    The way of a guilty man is crooked, but the conduct of the innocent is upright.

    Here: Another word found only here. Most modern lexicons link it to Arabic wazara, "to carry a burden" (noun wizr, "burden, guilt"), so it means a man weighed down by guilt. Older readers split it into "and" + zar, "and strange". The main pause in the verse falls on this word.

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