To work (in any sense); by implication, to serve , till , (causatively) enslave , etc.
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עָבַד is the primary Hebrew verb for work, service, and worship — three realities the word holds together without separating them. In its basic range it means to labor, to till, to serve a master, or to perform assigned work.
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Full entry for עָבַד (H5647) · Open the biblical lexicon
עָבַד is the primary Hebrew verb for work, service, and worship — three realities the word holds together without separating them. In its basic range it means to labor, to till, to serve a master, or to perform assigned work.
The BSB source-word alignment has 289 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include to serve (19), and served (18), serve (17), and serve (12), served (9).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 2:5. Its strongest book concentrations include Jeremiah (36), Deuteronomy (35), Exodus (31), Genesis (23).
This entry includes 2 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
עָבַד is the primary Hebrew verb for work, service, and worship — three realities the word holds together without separating them. In its basic range it means to labor, to till, to serve a master, or to perform assigned work. But the same root also carries the full weight of religious devotion: to serve God, to worship, to do the acts of obedience that belong to the covenant relationship. The noun form עֶבֶד (servant, slave) and the related עֲבֹדָה (service, labor, worship) share the same root, so that in Hebrew thought the servant and the worshiper are joined by the same word.
Deuteronomy is the book of עָבַד in concentrated form. Deuteronomy 6:13 — 'Fear the Lord your God, serve him only (אֹתוֹ תַעֲבֹד), and take your oaths in his name' — places service alongside fear and oath-taking as the defining posture of covenant loyalty. The same verse is cited by Jesus in the wilderness temptation when Satan offers him the kingdoms of the world: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only' (Matthew 4:10). Service to God is presented as exclusive: Israel may not עָבַד other gods (Deuteronomy 6:14, 7:16, 13:5). The verb marks out who or what receives the devotion that belongs to God alone.
Deuteronomy 28:47-48 uses the word at the hinge of the curse section: 'Because you did not serve (עָבַד) the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, when you had abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies.' The failure to serve God with joy — not merely to perform religious duty but to do it with the affective quality of delight — becomes the root of covenant breach and its consequences. Joyless worship is not neutral. It is a form of withheld service that the covenant cannot tolerate.
Across the OT, עָבַד names the vocation of Israel: to serve the living God, not idols. The prophets use it to indict Israel for serving Baals (Jeremiah 2:20), and to promise restoration when Israel will return to serve God rightly (Isaiah 40:26-31; Malachi 3:14-18). The NT builds on this foundation: Jesus comes as the Servant (using the Greek δοῦλος and διάκονος), and Paul calls himself a δοῦλος of Christ. The category of servant-worship is not abolished in the NT but transformed — those who serve the risen Lord do so not from duty under threat but from love in the Spirit.
Genesis 2:15 — the Lord God placed the man in the garden to work it (לְעָבְדָהּ) and keep it. Before the fall, עָבַד names Adam's calling: vocation as creation-service offered to God. Work is not a consequence of the curse but a pre-fall commission. The curse in Genesis 3 does not introduce work but makes it toilsome.
עָבַד spans the entire biblical narrative of human calling and covenant obligation. In Eden, it names what humanity is created to do: serve the creation as God's image-bearers, tending and keeping what God has made. This service is not servitude in a degrading sense — it is the work of vice-regents acting on behalf of the Creator. When sin enters, service is not removed but distorted: the ground resists, labor becomes toil, and the capacity to serve God with a whole heart is broken.
At the Exodus, the word becomes the hinge of liberation theology. Pharaoh says 'serve me,' and God says 'serve me.' The contest is not between slavery and freedom in the abstract. It is between two lordships. God's purpose for Israel from the burning bush onward is that they would serve him on the holy mountain. The wilderness journey is the transit from one master to another. This pattern shapes all subsequent understanding of salvation as redemption for worship, not merely rescue from difficulty.
Deuteronomy concentrates and applies this logic to the covenant community on the edge of the land. The Shema's command to love God with all the heart (6:5) is inseparable from the command to serve God only (6:13). Serving other gods is not merely a competing loyalty — it is a betrayal of the exclusive relationship that constitutes Israel's identity as God's people. The curse of Deuteronomy 28 lands with particular force on joyless service: God requires not only compliance but affective engagement, not only the external act but the willing heart. This pastoral point runs through the entire prophetic tradition: rote worship, lip-service, and external form without internal devotion are not acceptable substitutes for the service God requires.
In the NT, the lexical root passes into Greek through several words (δοῦλος, λατρεύω, διακονέω), and Jesus draws the tradition to its center. He cites Deuteronomy 6:13 in the temptation as the definitive answer to every offer of rival service. He washes his disciples' feet as the model of servant leadership. He comes 'not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' (Matthew 20:28). The one who calls Israel to serve him perfectly enacts what that service looks like in human flesh. The Christian call to service draws from this well: because God in Christ has served us at infinite cost, we are freed to serve him and one another without calculation or resentment. Service becomes worship, and worship is the shape of a life given back to God.
The trajectory of עָבַד runs from creation vocation (Gen. 2:15) through covenant obligation (Deuteronomy), through prophetic indictment and promise (Jeremiah, Malachi, Isaiah), into the NT pattern of servant-sonship. Jesus both fulfills the Servant role (Isaiah 42-53 background) and redefines service: 'whoever would be first among you must be your slave (δοῦλος)' (Matthew 20:27).
Paul's self-designation as 'servant of Christ Jesus' (Romans 1:1) carries the full OT gravity of עֶבֶד — not shame but vocation. The church as worshiping community is the covenant people's service enacted.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Service encompasses labor, slavery, and worship—a single Hebrew concept uniting human work with devotion to God.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 289 lexical occurrence verses.
עָבַד is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
This word opens the full theology of vocation, worship, and covenant loyalty in a single root. It allows a pastor to connect work (what we do daily), service (how we relate to others), and worship (what we do on Sunday) as one integrated calling rather than three separate categories. It also opens the exodus pattern: salvation is not from service but from the wrong master, into service of the right one.
It corrects the sacred-secular split: the same word names farming, temple service, and worship of God. Work is not secular and worship is not merely religious. It corrects joyless Christianity: Deuteronomy 28:47 shows that serving God without joy is covenant failure, not spiritual discipline. It also corrects the idea that Christian freedom means freedom from serving — Jesus and Paul both claim servant identity as the highest description of themselves.
Frame עָבַד around the question: 'Who or what do you serve?' In Deuteronomy, this is the central covenant question. In Genesis 2, it is the creation calling. In Exodus 3, it is the liberation goal. In Jesus's temptation (Matthew 4:10), it is the decisive test. Preach it with the Deuteronomy 28:47 pastoral edge: God is not satisfied with mere compliance. He requires service offered with a glad heart. The joy of service is not optional sentiment — it is covenantal fidelity.
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