Hebrew word · H2725

חֵרָבוֹן

becharvonei

drought

Drought, parching heat. It appears only here in the Bible, from the root ch-r-b 'to be dry, waste, desolate'. Related to chorev, 'heat, drought'.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

drought

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 32:4

Range of meaning

Drought, parching heat. It appears only here in the Bible, from the root ch-r-b 'to be dry, waste, desolate'. Related to chorev, 'heat, drought'.

Against the English

Most English versions give a single 'heat' or 'drought'. The Hebrew plural, 'droughts' or 'heats' (kept by YLT), stresses intensity and repetition.

Used elsewhere in the period

Compare Jacob's complaint: 'By day the heat (chorev) consumed me, and the frost by night' (Genesis 31:40). It has the same day-and-night frame and the same root for heat.

Where it appears

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 32:4 בְּחַרְבֹ֖נֵי by [the] dry heat<s> of

    For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was drained as in the summer heat. Selah

    Here: 'In / as by the dry heats of'. The word appears only here in the Bible, from the root 'to be dry'. The plural makes it stronger: blast after blast of parching heat.

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