Hebrew word · H393

אַכְזָר

'akhzar

cruel

Fierce, harsh, pitiless, implacable. It is used of the venom of asps (Deut 32:33), of Leviathan whom no one dares rouse (Job 41:10 Heb./41:2), and of God as he feels to suffering Job (the related akhzar in Job 30:21).

Appears 4 times in 4 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament.

What it means

cruel, fierce

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 Lamentations 4:3

Range of meaning

Fierce, harsh, pitiless, implacable. It is used of the venom of asps (Deut 32:33), of Leviathan whom no one dares rouse (Job 41:10 Heb./41:2), and of God as he feels to suffering Job (the related akhzar in Job 30:21). The related forms akhzari ('cruel', Prov 5:9; 11:17; Jer 6:23) and akhzeriyyut ('fierceness', Prov 27:4) have the same ring.

Against the English

BSB, KJV, ESV, NASB and WEB 'cruel'; NIV 'heartless'. 'Heartless' arguably comes closer here, because the failure is an absence of tenderness rather than active sadism.

How it drifted

Modern 'cruel' leans toward deliberately causing pain. Akhzar has more to do with hardness and the absence of pity, being fierce and unyielding. In this verse the 'cruelty' is shown by not nursing: neglect, not attack.

Used elsewhere in the period

Deut 32:33; Job 30:21; 41:10; Lam 4:3. The Septuagint here seems to read differently (eis aniaton, 'to the incurable/beyond healing'), though this should be held loosely.

Similar words

Where it appears

Deuteronomy · 1

  1. Deuteronomy 32:33 אַכְזָֽר׃ cruel

    Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.

Job · 2

  1. Job 30:21 לְאַכְזָ֣ר into [one] cruel

    You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand.

  2. Job 41:10 אַ֭כְזָר fierce

    No one is so fierce as to rouse Leviathan. Then who is able to stand against Me?

Lamentations · 1

  1. Lamentations 4:3 לְאַכְזָ֔ר [has become] <into> cruel

    Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.

    Here: Literally 'to/into cruel', a compressed way of saying 'has turned cruel' (the verb 'become' is understood). The word means hard, fierce, pitiless, the opposite of tender. The preposition stresses a change: she was not like this before.

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