Hebrew word · H7653
שִׂבְעָה
siv'at-
fullness
Sivʿah means satiety, having enough or more than enough, from the verb savaʿ, 'to be satisfied, full'. Leḥem is bread and, by extension, food in general.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
satisfaction, satiety, one's fill
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 Ezekiel 16:49
- Range of meaning
Sivʿah means satiety, having enough or more than enough, from the verb savaʿ, 'to be satisfied, full'. Leḥem is bread and, by extension, food in general.
- Against the English
KJV/WEB 'fulness of bread'; ESV 'excess of food'; NASB 'abundant food'; NIV/BSB 'overfed'; NLT 'gluttony'. 'Overfed' and 'gluttony' make it about personal eating habits. The Hebrew describes a social condition, a city where food was never in doubt.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In Exodus 16:3 Israel remembers Egypt where 'we ate bread to the full' (lasovaʿ). Deuteronomy 8:10–14 warns that when you 'eat and are full' your heart may be lifted up (the same 'rising' idea as pride) and you will forget the LORD. Earlier in this chapter Ezekiel uses savaʿ against Jerusalem, who was never 'satisfied' in her pursuits (16:28–29).
Where it appears
Ezekiel · 1
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Ezekiel 16:49 שִׂבְעַת־ surfeit of
Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and complacent; they did not help the poor and needy.
Here: Being full, having eaten to satisfaction and beyond. Here it means a settled condition of plenty, not a single feast.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.