Hebrew word · H5759
עֲוִיל
'avileihem
boy
Young child, small boy. Probably related to ʿul, "nursing infant" (Isa 49:15; 65:20), and the root ʿwl, "to give suck". It occurs only in Job (19:18; 21:11).
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
young male or man or boy, boy
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
Young child, small boy. Probably related to ʿul, "nursing infant" (Isa 49:15; 65:20), and the root ʿwl, "to give suck". It occurs only in Job (19:18; 21:11).
- Against the English
"Little ones" (KJV, BSB, WEB) catches the youngness. YLT's "sucklings" follows the probable root but may make them too young to be skipping about. ESV's "little boys" reads the masculine plural narrowly; in Hebrew a masculine plural can include girls.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Job 19:18: "Even young children (ʿawilim) despise me." There is also a different, identical-looking word ʿawil meaning "wicked, unjust one" (H5760, Job 16:11). It comes from another root, ʿwl, "act unjustly".
Where it appears
Job · 2
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Job 19:18 עֲ֭וִילִים young boys
Even little boys scorn me; when I appear, they deride me.
-
Job 21:11 עֲוִילֵיהֶ֑ם young boys their
They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,
Here: "Their little ones." This is a rare word, probably related to a root meaning "to nurse". It means very young children; the YLT's "sucklings" reflects that link. In Job it appears only here and in 19:18, where these same "young children" despise the suffering Job.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.