Hebrew word · H6089

עֶ֫צֶב

'etzev

toil

Hurt, pain (physical or emotional); hard work, toil; something hurtful.

Appears 7 times in 7 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 24, 2026

What it means

1) pain, hurt, toil, sorrow, labour, hardship

1a) pain

1b) hurt, offense

1c) toil, hardship

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: Hurt, pain (physical or emotional); hard work, toil; something hurtful.
Against the English: 'In pain' (BSB, WEB, ESV, NASB), 'with painful labor' (NIV), 'in sorrow' (KJV). All of these are acceptable. The work side of the word is usually lost.
Used elsewhere in the period: Prov 14:23, 'in all toil (ʿetsev) there is profit'. Prov 5:10, 'your labors' go to a stranger. Ps 127:2, 'the bread of toils'. Prov 10:22, the LORD's blessing 'adds no hardship to it'. Prov 15:1, a 'hurtful word'. A closely related form appears in a birth context in 1 Chr 4:9: Jabez's mother says, 'I bore him in pain (beʿōtsev).'

Range of meaning: (1) Hard, painful labour, toil (Prov 5:10 "your labours"; 14:23 "in all toil there is profit"; Ps 127:2 "the bread of toils"). (2) Physical pain, especially the pain of childbirth (Gen 3:16). (3) More rarely, hurt or grief (cf. the related verb ʿatsav, "to grieve"). A separate, identical-looking noun ʿetsev means "idol" or "image" and is not in view here.
Against the English: KJV, ESV, NASB and BSB have "sorrow," WEB "trouble," YLT "grief." To modern ears "sorrow" means sadness and emotional pain. The Hebrew word centres on the hard, painful work of making a living, the toil-and-pain of the curse in Genesis 3. NIV ("painful toil") and NJPS ("toil") bring this out.
How it drifted: In older English "sorrow" could still mean affliction and hardship in general, and the KJV tradition kept the word. As English "sorrow" narrowed to inner sadness, the verse came to sound like a promise of a grief-free, trouble-free prosperity.
Used elsewhere in the period: Genesis 3:16 (בְּעֶצֶב, "in pain") and 3:17 (the related ʿitsavon, "painful toil" from the cursed ground). Psalm 127:2 is the closest parallel in thought: rising early and "eating the bread of toils" is in vain, because YHWH gives to his beloved even in sleep. Proverbs 14:23 uses the word positively: "in all toil there is profit."

Range of meaning: The root ʿ-ts-b covers pain, hurt, grief and wearying toil. As a noun, ʿetsev can mean physical pain (Gen 3:16, "in pain you shall bear children"), emotional hurt or a painful word (Prov 15:1, "a harsh word", literally "a word of pain"), and the hard labor that produces income (Prov 5:10, "your labors" going to a stranger's house; Ps 127:2, "the bread of toils"). The closely related ʿitstsavon is the "painful toil" of the cursed ground in Gen 3:17.
Against the English: KJV, YLT and NASB say "labour". BSB, WEB and NIV say "(hard) labor/work". ESV says "toil", which comes closest. None of these keeps the note of pain that Hebrew hearers would have caught. Plain "work" (as in NLT) could mean anything from a desk job to a hobby.
How it drifted: The English isn't wrong. It is too mild. "Labor" and "work" lost their sense of hardship as they came to mean employment in general.
Used elsewhere in the period: Gen 3:16; Prov 5:10; 10:22; 15:1; Ps 127:2. The Greek Septuagint seems to have felt the "pain" sense: it sets the one who takes anxious care against the person who is analgētos, "free of pain, unfeeling", in the second half (see textual notes). HALOT and BDB both give "pain" and "toil" as senses.

Genesis · 1

Genesis 3:16 בְּעֶ֖צֶב with pain

To the woman He said: “I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Here: 'In pain' or 'with hardship'. It comes from the same root as 'toil' above, and its range covers both physical or emotional hurt and laborious work (Prov 14:23).

Psalms · 1

Psalm 127:2 הָעֲצָבִ֑ים <the> labors

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat—for He gives sleep to His beloved.

Here: Plural with the article, 'the painful toils'. The bread is bought with wearing, hurting labour, and perhaps with worry (ESV 'anxious toil'). It does not mean sadness or grief, as the KJV's 'sorrows' now suggests.

Proverbs · 4

Proverbs 5:10 וַ֝עֲצָבֶ֗יךָ and labor your

lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.

Here: 'And your painful toils', meaning work that costs sweat and hurt, and what that work earns. The plural points to years of accumulated effort.
Proverbs 10:22 עֶ֣צֶב sorrow

The blessing of the LORD enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it.

Here: Hard, painful labour and the pain that comes with it. This is the word of Genesis 3:16 ("in pain you shall bear children"), and its sister word marks the cursed ground's toil in 3:17. It is not mainly inner sadness.
Proverbs 14:23 עֶ֭צֶב hard labor

There is profit in all labor, but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Here: Labor that hurts: the tiring, aching kind. It is the same word Genesis 3:16 uses for the pain of childbirth. Here it means the costly physical effort that talk spares you.
Proverbs 15:1 עֶ֝֗צֶב hurt

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Here: Pain, grief, painful labor. A "word of pain" is a word that wounds or hurts. The point is the hurt it does, not simply its rough tone.

Jeremiah · 1

Jeremiah 22:28 הַעֶ֨צֶב ¿ a pot

Is this man Coniah a despised and shattered pot, a jar that no one wants? Why are he and his descendants hurled out and cast into a land they do not know?

Here: The opening 'ha-' turns the sentence into a question ('Is…?'). It is not the word 'the.' 'Etsev here is a molded clay pot, a cheap, everyday thing shaped by a potter. This is the only place the word has this sense.

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