Hebrew word · H2808

חֶשְׁבּוֹן

cheshbon

explanation

Reckoning, account, calculation, the result of thinking something through. It comes from khashav, 'to think, reckon, count, devise'. Related forms mean 'inventions' or 'schemes' (7:29, khishshevonot).

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

account, reasoning, reckoning

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 Ecclesiastes 9:10

Range of meaning

Reckoning, account, calculation, the result of thinking something through. It comes from khashav, 'to think, reckon, count, devise'. Related forms mean 'inventions' or 'schemes' (7:29, khishshevonot).

Against the English

KJV: 'device' (in 1611 this meant a plan or contrivance, not a gadget). ESV: 'thought'. BSB, NIV and NASB: 'planning'. WEB: 'plan'. YLT: 'device'.

How it drifted

KJV's 'device' now suggests a machine or gadget. 'Planning' is accurate but loses the sense of tallying and investigating, the intellectual adding-up that Qohelet himself did.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Hebrew Bible it occurs only in Ecclesiastes: 7:25 ('to seek wisdom and kheshbon'), 7:27 ('adding one to one to find the kheshbon'), and 9:10. The Septuagint translates it logismos, 'reasoning, calculation'.

From the study of Ecclesiastes 7:25

Range of meaning

Reckoning, account, sum; the result of calculating; by extension, a reasoned conclusion or the activity of working something out. It comes from ḥāšab, "to count, calculate, think."

Against the English

BSB and NASB say "explanation," KJV and YLT "reason," and NIV, ESV and WEB "the scheme of things." All are defensible for the general sense, but all replace a counting word with something more philosophical. "Reckoning" or "the sum of things" keeps the picture.

How it drifted

The Latin Vulgate used rationem, a word that meant both "account, calculation" and "reason." In English, "reason" lost the bookkeeping sense, and "the scheme of things" now suggests a grand cosmic plan that the Hebrew word does not itself state.

Used elsewhere in the period

As an ordinary noun in the Hebrew Bible it appears only in Ecclesiastes (7:25, 27; 9:10), although the town of Heshbon has the same spelling. In Hebrew Ben Sira it is used for accounts with a business partner (Sirach 42:3). The Greek here has psēphos, a counting pebble, which shows that the ancient translator heard it as calculation. It later became the normal Hebrew word for an account or bill.

Similar words

Where it appears

Ecclesiastes · 3

  1. Ecclesiastes 7:25 וְחֶשְׁבּ֑וֹן and an explanation

    I directed my mind to understand, to explore, to search out wisdom and explanations, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the folly of madness.

    Here: "And a reckoning," from the verb for counting and calculating. He wants the sum of things, the figure at the bottom of the column, and verse 27 pictures him adding "one to one" to reach it.

  2. Ecclesiastes 7:27 חֶשְׁבּֽוֹן׃ an explanation

    “Behold,” says the Teacher, “I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find an explanation.

  3. Ecclesiastes 9:10 וְחֶשְׁבּוֹן֙ and explanation

    Whatever you find to do with your hands, do it with all your might, for in Sheol, where you are going, there is no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.

    Here: 'And reckoning': figuring things out, adding up, scheming. It is the word Qohelet used for his own search for 'the sum of things' (7:25, 27).

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