Hebrew word · H3022
יָגָע
yago'
toil
This noun appears only here. Related words are yāḡaʿ ("to toil, grow weary") and yəḡîaʿ ("labor" and also "the product of labor", as in Deut 28:33 and Ps 128:2, "you shall eat the toil of your hands"). So the meaning is "the gain or fruit of toil".
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
earnings, gain (product of labour)
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
This noun appears only here. Related words are yāḡaʿ ("to toil, grow weary") and yəḡîaʿ ("labor" and also "the product of labor", as in Deut 28:33 and Ps 128:2, "you shall eat the toil of your hands"). So the meaning is "the gain or fruit of toil".
- Against the English
KJV "that which he laboured for" and BSB "fruit of his labor" are good. "Gain" or "profit" loses the note of weary effort built into the root.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Ps 128:2 and Isa 55:2 use the related yəḡîaʿ for the earnings one hopes to eat or enjoy. A common biblical curse is that someone else eats your labor (Deut 28:33).
Where it appears
Job · 1
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Job 20:18 יָ֭גָע [the] gain
He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it; he cannot enjoy the profits of his trading.
Here: A noun that occurs only here. It comes from the root "to toil, grow weary" and means what the toil earned: the gains or the fruit of his effort. Zophar uses a word for honest sweat sarcastically, since v.19 shows the "gain" was taken from the poor.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.