אָדַב
𐤀𐤃𐤁
ʼâdab
H109 verb
SILEX Entry
Definition
To become weak or faint, to languish emotionally or physically; to experience decline of strength, whether due to grief, suffering, or external hardship. The verb can denote both physical wasting away and deep inner distress, often used to describe individuals or communities in states of mourning, deprivation, or prolonged suffering. While it may chiefly connote emotional loss or grief, it also encompasses broader senses of withering or wasting away in crisis contexts.
Semantic Range
to languish physically, to grieve emotionally, to waste away because of sorrow, to be feeble from distress
Root / Etymology
From the root אָדַב (aleph-dalet-bet), etymology uncertain and not widely attested outside Biblical Hebrew. The root is classified as a primitive verb, likely developed within Northwest Semitic, potentially related to similar roots signifying weakness, grief, or decline in neighboring languages, though direct cognates are not well established.
Historical & Contextual Notes
אָדַב appears only rarely in the Hebrew Bible (hapax legomenon or nearly so), primarily in poetic or lament contexts. Its meaning is clarified chiefly through parallelism and ancient versions. Most notably, it conveys a sense of deep sorrow leading to physical decline, sometimes paralleling the experience of a people in exile, famine, or disaster. Unlike other terms for mourning (such as אָבַל 'to mourn' or קָדַר 'to be dark, mourn'), אָדַב emphasizes the ongoing, debilitating effects of loss, with shades of both emotional and physical languishing. Standard English translations like 'grieve' or 'languish' often fail to capture the somatic dimension inherent in the verb. No later Hebrew tradition or rabbinic usage is attested, marking it as an archaic, possibly regionalism or poetic archaism. The word never denotes the formal act of mourning (as does אָבַל), but rather its somatic consequence.
Original Strong's Gloss (1890)
a primitive root; to languish; grieve.
Bantu Hebrew
No Bantu Hebrew comparisons have been submitted for this word yet.
+ Add Bantu Hebrew WordRoot Family
אדב (ʾ-d-b) — to weaken, to languish, to grieve, to decline
| Strong's | Lemma | SIBI-P1 |
|---|---|---|
| H110 | אַדְבְּאֵל | and God-has-disciplined |
Word Forms
1 distinct form
| SIDANCE | Surface | Transliteration | Morphology | Common | SIBI-P1 | Occurrences |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
H109-01 |
וְ/לַ/אֲדִ֣יב | velaadiv | HC/R/Vhc |
and-to-grieve | and to make languish | 1 |
Occurrences in Scripture
1 total occurrence
| SIDANCE | Reference | Word | Transliteration | Morphology | Common | SIBI-P1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
H109-01 |
1 Samuel 2:33 | וְ/לַ/אֲדִ֣יב | velaadiv | HC/R/Vhc |
and-to-grieve | and to make languish |