Hebrew word · H5354
נָקַט
naketah
to tire
To feel disgust, loathing or revulsion toward something; to be sick of it. Closely related to (or a by-form of) the verb qûṭ, 'to loathe, feel sickened by', used in Ps 95:10 ('I loathed that generation'), Ps 119:158, Ps 139:21, and in Ezekiel's 'you will loathe yourselves' (Ezek 6:9; 20:43; 36:31).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) to loathe, be grieved, feel a loathing
1a) (Niphal) to feel loathing against self
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
To feel disgust, loathing or revulsion toward something; to be sick of it. Closely related to (or a by-form of) the verb qûṭ, 'to loathe, feel sickened by', used in Ps 95:10 ('I loathed that generation'), Ps 119:158, Ps 139:21, and in Ezekiel's 'you will loathe yourselves' (Ezek 6:9; 20:43; 36:31).
- Against the English
KJV, WEB and YLT say 'weary of', which today sounds like fatigue or boredom. BSB, NIV, ESV and NASB say 'loathe', which carries the revulsion better.
- How it drifted
In 1611 'weary of' could mean 'sick of, fed up with.' Modern English hears tiredness, so the gut-level disgust drops out.
- Used elsewhere in the period
This exact spelling occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) connect it with qûṭ and with Aramaic and later Hebrew forms meaning 'to loathe.' The Vulgate renders the idea with taedet, 'it disgusts / wearies', and the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation) has a phrase meaning 'weary/sick in my soul.'
Where it appears
Job · 1
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Job 10:1 נָֽקְטָ֥ה it loathes
“I loathe my own life; I will express my complaint and speak in the bitterness of my soul.
Here: A verb of revulsion, not tiredness: 'is sick of, is disgusted with.' The form is a completed action ('has come to loathe'), describing the settled state Job is now in.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.