Heat ; figuratively, anger , poison (from its fever)
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חֵמָה is the heat of divine wrath — not irritability or loss of control, but the burning intensity of God's settled moral response to sin. When the prophets announce that God will pour out His חֵמָה (Ezek 5:15; 14:19; Isa 42:25), they are describing a fire that is proportionate, deserved, and entirely consistent with His character.
Reader summary
Full entry for חֵמָה (H2534) · Open the biblical lexicon
חֵמָה is the heat of divine wrath — not irritability or loss of control, but the burning intensity of God's settled moral response to sin. When the prophets announce that God will pour out His חֵמָה (Ezek 5:15; 14:19; Isa 42:25), they are describing a fire that is proportionate, deserved, and entirely consistent with His character.
The BSB source-word alignment has 125 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include My wrath (19), wrath (10), and wrath (6), the wrath (6), fury (5).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 27:44. Its strongest book concentrations include Ezekiel (33), Jeremiah (17), Psalms (15), Isaiah (13).
חֵמָה is the heat of divine wrath — not irritability or loss of control, but the burning intensity of God's settled moral response to sin. When the prophets announce that God will pour out His חֵמָה (Ezek 5:15; 14:19; Isa 42:25), they are describing a fire that is proportionate, deserved, and entirely consistent with His character. The word matters because a God who is not genuinely angry about sin would not be trustworthy.
A judge who is indifferent to injustice is not kind — he is corrupt. חֵמָה is the language of a covenant God who takes both His people and His holiness seriously enough to burn against the betrayal of both. The pastoral danger is in both directions: minimizing divine wrath into mere disappointment, or detaching it from God's covenant love so it becomes arbitrary terror.
The OT holds חֵמָה and חֶסֶד in the same God — the same One whose loyal love (H2617) is also the One whose fury burns against what destroys what He loves.
חֵמָה appears about 124 times in the local Hebrew index, concentrated in the prophets (Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah) and appearing in narrative (Esther) and wisdom (Job). The prophetic concentration is in exile-and-judgment contexts, where divine חֵמָה is the specific quality of the judgment being announced.
So you will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror to the nations around you, when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging fury. I, the Lord, have spoken.
חֵמָה paired with אַף (anger) and תוֹכֵחוֹת חֵמָה (furious rebukes). The judgment on Jerusalem is described in layered wrath vocabulary. The phrase 'I am the Lord; I have spoken' anchors the fury in divine identity — it is not rage but the settled execution of what He declared.
So He poured out on them His furious anger and the fierceness of battle. It enveloped them in flames, but they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.
חֵמָה as fire poured out. The tragedy is not only the judgment but Israel's failure to read it — the burning did not produce repentance. Wrath that does not lead to understanding has accomplished nothing beyond the destruction itself.
Behold, the storm of the Lord has gone out with fury, a whirlwind swirling down upon the heads of the wicked.
חֵמָה as a storm that runs its course. Divine wrath is purposeful — it does not dissipate randomly but executes 'the intentions of his heart.' Wrath in the OT is teleological: it goes somewhere and arrives there.
When Haman saw that Mordecai would not bow down or pay him homage, he was filled with rage.
Human חֵמָה: Haman's rage at perceived disrespect. The same word used for divine burning wrath is used for a petty official's wounded pride. The contrast illuminates divine חֵמָה — God's wrath is the opposite of Haman's in that it is proportionate, just, and not self-serving.
And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.
חֵמָה restrained by compassion. YHWH's חֵמָה is real — it is mentioned precisely because holding it back is significant. The restraint of wrath is itself an act of mercy, not the denial that the wrath is real.
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. Anger as burning heat—divine wrath conceived as consuming fire reflecting God's passionate covenant justice
Anger as burning heat—divine wrath conceived as consuming fire reflecting God's passionate covenant justice
heat; figuratively, anger, poison (from its fever) BDB: heat Usage: anger, bottles, hot displeasure, furious(-ly, -ry), heat, indignation, poison, rage, wrath(-ful). See 2529.
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 4 selected witnesses from 124 lexical occurrence verses.
חֵמָה is built from this root:
Wrath frames the Day as moral reckoning rather than random catastrophe. Isaiah 13:9-16
Highlights the intensity of divine opposition to evil. Isaiah 30:27-33
Expresses the intensity of covenant judgment. Isaiah 42:18-25
Divine wrath frames the societal collapse as covenant judgment rather than random chaos. Isaiah 9:18-21
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
The OT gives teachers a word for the intensity of divine wrath because a God who responds to sin with mild disappointment is not morally serious. חֵמָה names the heat — the burning, the fire, the storm — of God's response to what destroys His covenant and His people. Pastorally, this word does two things simultaneously: it makes NT atonement meaningful (the cross absorbs חֵמָה; 1 Thess 5:9 — 'God has not destined us for wrath') and it makes divine patience recognizable as patience (Ps 78:38 — He restrained His חֵמָה).
Neither is possible if the wrath is not real. Minimizing chemah would make God seem indifferent to evil, which would distort the biblical witness to his justice and holiness.
Ezek.5.15
The root חמם (to be hot) connects חֵמָה to physical heat — it is not an abstract legal concept but a temperature. Nahum 1:6 asks 'Who can endure the heat (חֵמָה) of his anger?' framing wrath as something with a thermal quality. The same root generates the word for the hot springs of Hammath. God's wrath is not cold juridical procedure — it burns. This is not anthropomorphism to be explained away; it is the Bible's insistence that God's moral response to sin is not indifferent.
Rev 14:10 describes the wine of God's fury (θυμός) poured undiluted into the cup of His wrath (ὀργή). The same layering the OT prophets do with חֵמָה + אַף, the NT does with θυμός + ὀργή. The cross is where Rom 3:25 places the ἱλαστήριον — the propitiation, the place where חֵמָה is satisfied. 1 Thess 1:10 gives the gospel's practical horizon: 'Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.' The wrath is real and coming; the deliverance is the gospel's gift.
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