Bible Lexicons

Girdlestone's Synonyms of the Old TestamentGirdlestone's OT Synonyms

Travail

That sin has made life a burden and has turned work into toil and travail is acknowledged by all, and this fact has found its place among the lessons contained in Hebrew words. The word amal (עמל ) sets forth labour in its toilsome aspect, and is well represented in the LXX by κόπος, μόχθος, and πόυος. It is rendered toil in Genesis 41:51; trouble in Job 5:6-7; wearisome in Job 7:3; sorrow in Job 3:10, Psalms 55:10; pain or painful (in its old sense, as involving labour) in Psalms 25:18; Psalms 73:16; and labour in Psalms 90:10, 'Yet is their strength labour and sorrow.' this last rendering is constantly found in the Book of Ecclesiastes, which is devoted in great measure to a setting forth of the burdensomeness of an earthly existence in Ecclesiastes 4:6, amal is rendered travail, and this rendering has been adopted in Isaiah 53:11, where we read of the Messiah that 'he shall see (the fruits) of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.'

The passages hitherto noted do not trace the weariness of life to its source, but there are others in which this is not obscurely taught in Isaiah 10:1, and Habakkuk 1:3, amal is rendered grievousness; in Numbers 23:21, perverseness, 'he hath not seen perverseness in Israel;' in Habakkuk 1:13, iniquity, 'thou canst not look on iniquity;' in Job 4:8, wickedness; in Job 15:35, mischief, 'they conceive mischief and bring forth vanity' See also Psalms 7:14; Psalms 7:16; Psalms 10:7; Psalms 10:14; Psalms 94:20; Psalms 140:9; Proverbs 24:2; Isaiah 59:4, in all of which the same rendering is given and the same idea implied.