Strictly nothingness ; also trouble , vanity , wickedness ; specifically an idol
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H205, ʾāwen, is a Hebrew noun whose range must be learned from each setting rather than reduced to one hidden essence. It can name moral evil or iniquity, distress or sorrow, mourning, deceitful unreality, and what is worthless in idolatrous worship.
Reader summary
Full entry for אָוֶן (H205) · Open the biblical lexicon
H205, ʾāwen, is a Hebrew noun whose range must be learned from each setting rather than reduced to one hidden essence. It can name moral evil or iniquity, distress or sorrow, mourning, deceitful unreality, and what is worthless in idolatrous worship.
The BSB source-word alignment has 78 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include iniquity (12), of iniquity (12), . . . (10), evil (4), wicked (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Numbers 23:21. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (29), Job (13), Isaiah (12), Proverbs (9).
H205, ʾāwen, is a Hebrew noun whose range must be learned from each setting rather than reduced to one hidden essence. It can name moral evil or iniquity, distress or sorrow, mourning, deceitful unreality, and what is worthless in idolatrous worship. The selected artifact's gloss preserves several of these senses, but its reader-visible insight goes too far when it makes a supposed radical nothingness the basis of every use.
The direct witnesses do not establish that theory, and the companion does not adopt it. Deuteronomy 26:14 uses the noun in a declaration that the sacred portion was not eaten during mourning. Psalm 90:10 describes the labor and sorrow that mark a brief human life. Neither passage permits a teacher to recast grief, weakness, or ordinary creaturely affliction as proof of personal wickedness.
Job 5:6 speaks of distress in Eliphaz's argument, so readers must hear both the immediate claim and the book's later correction of Job's friends. A lexical entry cannot turn one speaker's maxim into the book's final theology of suffering. Other contexts are plainly moral. First Samuel 15:23 places the word beside rebellion, divination, arrogance, and idolatry as Samuel confronts Saul's rejection of the Lord's word.
Isaiah 1:13 uses it when God refuses worship joined to iniquity, and Micah 2:1 applies it to people who plan evil and seize homes and fields because they have the power to do so. In these passages ʾāwen is not vague inward negativity. It is exposed through disobedience, corrupted worship, and concrete injury to neighbors. Isaiah 41:29 and Zechariah 10:2 develop another part of the range around delusion, idols, false visions, deceptive dreams, and empty comfort.
Their point is not that created matter is unreal. Idols cannot save, false revelation misdirects, and leaders who offer deception leave people scattered and oppressed. This makes the noun pastorally relevant to claims of spiritual authority, but it does not license teachers to call every disputed practice idolatry or every mistaken person deceitful. Claims require textual, factual, and contextual testing.
H205 therefore helps readers name both the painful burden of life and moral forms of falsehood without confusing them. Where the passage concerns sorrow, the faithful response may be compassion and lament. Where it concerns iniquity, the response includes truth, repentance, justice, and protection of those harmed. Where it concerns idols or deceptive guidance, Scripture directs trust away from powerless substitutes and back to the living God.
The noun is context-sensitive vocabulary, not a theory that all pain, evil, and idolatry share an etymological substance called nothingness.
H205 can denote trouble, sorrow, mourning, iniquity, wickedness, deceitful unreality, or the worthlessness associated with idols. Its witnesses require careful separation of nonmoral suffering, accountable wrongdoing, corrupted worship, predatory injustice, and false spiritual guidance.
I have not eaten any of the sacred portion while in mourning, or removed any of it while unclean, or offered any of it for the dead. I have obeyed the Lord my God; I have done everything You commanded me.
The covenant declaration says the sacred portion was not eaten during mourning, showing a grief-related use that must not be treated as personal wickedness.
For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance is like the wickedness of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king.”
Samuel places rebellion and arrogance alongside divination and idolatry as he confronts Saul's rejection of the Lord's word.
For distress does not spring from the dust, and trouble does not sprout from the ground.
Eliphaz claims that distress does not arise from the soil, but the statement belongs to a fallible speaker whose counsel the book later evaluates.
The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty if we are strong—yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
The psalm names labor and sorrow within the brevity of human life, supporting lament over frailty rather than an automatic accusation of guilt.
Bring your worthless offerings no more; your incense is detestable to Me. New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations—I cannot endure iniquity in a solemn assembly.
The Lord refuses a solemn assembly joined to iniquity, exposing worship that continues while covenant unfaithfulness and injustice remain.
See, they are all a delusion; their works amount to nothing; their images are as empty as the wind.
The idols and their works are judged as delusion and powerless wind, locating the sense in false worship and failed claims to save.
Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.
Those who devise iniquity use their power to seize fields, houses, and inheritances, giving the moral sense a concrete victim-facing shape.
For idols speak deceit and diviners see illusions; they tell false dreams and offer empty comfort. Therefore the people wander like sheep, oppressed for lack of a shepherd.
Idols, diviners, false dreams, and empty comfort leave the people wandering and oppressed for lack of faithful shepherding.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Radical emptiness underlying all forms of evil, trouble, and idolatry—nothingness as moral and spiritual corruption.
Radical emptiness underlying all forms of evil, trouble, and idolatry—nothingness as moral and spiritual corruption.
strictly nothingness; also trouble, vanity, wickedness; specifically an idol BDB: trouble Usage: affliction, evil, false, idol, iniquity, mischief, mourners(-ing), naught, sorrow, unjust, unrighteous, vain, vanity, wicked(-ness). Compare 369.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 79 lexical occurrence verses.
Describes moral corruption of Gilead.Hosea 6:7-11
Describes deep moral corruption.Hosea 7:1-7
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Micah 2:1 gives H205 a concrete moral center by naming iniquity that is planned at night and carried out against households when morning brings the power to act. The word is not an abstraction there. Fields, homes, and inheritances are taken, so faithful interpretation must notice the people harmed by powerful schemes. Isaiah 1 similarly refuses to separate solemn worship from injustice, while First Samuel 15 refuses to let religious sacrifice cover rejection of God's word.
Yet Deuteronomy 26 and Psalm 90 prevent teachers from turning the moral sense into a verdict against every sufferer, because the noun can also name mourning and life's sorrow. Job adds a further safeguard: a statement containing true vocabulary may still come from a speaker whose explanation of suffering the book does not finally endorse. Isaiah 41 and Zechariah 10 then expose idols and deceptive promises that cannot deliver and leave people scattered.
Across this range, H205 calls for contextual judgment. It can summon lament, repentance, justice, or rejection of false worship, but the passage must decide which response is faithful.
Mic.2.1
The verified citation form is ʾāwen for אָוֶן; the selected artifact's simplified aven is not the full governed transliteration. Its occurrence total of 79, the 78 direct local BSB tokens in 78 verses across 14 books, and the 68 forms in the available morphology projection are distinct denominators and must not be collapsed.
The New Testament also distinguishes affliction from culpable evil, condemns worship of created substitutes, and calls God's people to truth, repentance, mercy, and justice. Those themes provide a canonical bridge, but their Greek vocabulary retains separate lexical identities and must not be presented as direct equivalents of H205.