Hebrew word · H8383

תְּאֻנִים

te'unim

toil

A word that occurs only here, so its meaning is uncertain. BDB connects it with a root meaning 'to be strong, make effort' and glosses it 'toil'. Others link it to 'aven ('trouble, wickedness, deception'), which is where the KJV's 'lies' comes from.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

toil

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 24:12

Range of meaning

A word that occurs only here, so its meaning is uncertain. BDB connects it with a root meaning 'to be strong, make effort' and glosses it 'toil'. Others link it to 'aven ('trouble, wickedness, deception'), which is where the KJV's 'lies' comes from. Some scholars think the text is damaged at this point.

Against the English

KJV: 'she hath wearied herself with lies'. YLT: 'with sorrows'. WEB: 'weary with toil'. BSB: 'frustrated every effort'. NIV's wording is similar to BSB's. Most modern versions go with 'toil, effort'.

How it drifted

KJV's 'lies' is not drift in the usual sense. It is a different guess at a rare word, based on one possible root. Readers should know that every rendering of this word is a guess.

Used elsewhere in the period

There is no other occurrence in the Hebrew Bible or in other surviving Hebrew. The Septuagint, as usually printed, does not translate it. The Vulgate (Jerome's Latin) seems to take it as hard labour ('with much labour it was sweated over').

Where it appears

Ezekiel · 1

  1. Ezekiel 24:12 תְּאֻנִ֖ים toil<s>

    It has frustrated every effort; its thick rust has not been removed, even by the fire.

    Here: This word occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, so its meaning is a reasoned guess. It is usually taken as 'toils' or 'exhausting labours': all the work spent trying to get the pot clean. It stands first for emphasis: 'Toil! all of it wasted.'

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