An extremity
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H7097 names an end, edge, border, outer part, or extremity. It can refer to the edge of a city or camp, the tip of an object, the border of a land, the end of a period, or the farthest horizon in a broad statement.
Reader summary
Full entry for קָצֶה (H7097) · Open the biblical lexicon
H7097 names an end, edge, border, outer part, or extremity. It can refer to the edge of a city or camp, the tip of an object, the border of a land, the end of a period, or the farthest horizon in a broad statement.
The BSB source-word alignment has 97 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include At the end (7), From the ends (7), . . . (6), the other (5), the ends (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 8:3. Its strongest book concentrations include Joshua (15), Isaiah (12), Deuteronomy (9), Exodus (9).
H7097 names an end, edge, border, outer part, or extremity. It can refer to the edge of a city or camp, the tip of an object, the border of a land, the end of a period, or the farthest horizon in a broad statement. Its sense is determined by what has the edge and whether the setting is spatial, temporal, geographic, or rhetorical. In Exod. 13. 20, Israel camps at Etham on the edge of the wilderness as the exodus journey moves toward a place of testing and divine guidance.
In 1Sam. 9. 27, Samuel pauses with Saul at the edge of the city so the servant can go ahead and Saul can hear the word of God. In Deut. 30. 4, Moses declares that even exiles driven to the farthest horizon will be gathered and returned by the Lord when the covenant people turn to Him. H7097 opens teaching on creaturely boundaries, transitions, distance, and God’s power to gather those beyond ordinary reach.
It corrects the assumption that an edge is always a place of abandonment and restrains attempts to turn ancient horizon language into a modern scientific diagram. The word marks a limit relative to a named whole; the passage tells whether that limit signifies transition, separation, completion, danger, or hope.
H7097 appears for borders, tips, outskirts, coastlands, temporal endings, and comprehensive expressions from one end to another. These uses teach readers to attend to the bounded object and the speaker’s perspective. The same boundary word can mark an ordinary endpoint, a moment of revelation, a threatening frontier, or the reach of God’s restoring promise.
They set out from Succoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness.
The Israelites leave Succoth and camp at Etham on the edge of the wilderness as the Lord leads them on the exodus journey.
As they were going down to the edge of the city, Samuel said to Saul, “Tell the servant to go on ahead of us, but you stay for a while, and I will reveal to you the word of God.” So the servant went on.
At the edge of the city, Samuel sends the servant ahead and asks Saul to remain so he may receive the word of God.
Even if you have been banished to the farthest horizon, He will gather you and return you from there.
Moses promises that even covenant exiles at the farthest horizon will be gathered and brought back by the Lord.
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. Boundary or terminus point, ranging from physical edge to abstract limit or conclusion.
Boundary or terminus point, ranging from physical edge to abstract limit or conclusion.
an extremity BDB: end Usage: × after, border, brim, brink, edge, end, (in-) finite, frontier, outmost coast, quarter, shore, (out-) side, × some, ut(-ter-) most (part).
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 1 selected witness from 97 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H7097 gives language for limits without making limits ultimate. At Etham, the edge of the wilderness is a real geographic threshold in Israel’s journey, and the surrounding exodus narrative emphasizes that the Lord leads His people into and through what lies beyond it. At the edge of the city, Saul pauses between ordinary travel and a life-altering word delivered through Samuel.
In Deuteronomy, the farthest horizon represents distance that human beings would regard as nearly unreachable, yet it cannot prevent God from gathering repentant exiles according to His covenant mercy. These passages do not make every boundary sacred or every transition a promise of success. They show instead that edges must be interpreted in relation to the whole: a camp has outskirts, a city has a limit, a period has an end, and the inhabited world can be described from its far reaches.
God remains Lord at the boundary and beyond it. Faithful teaching may therefore name fear, uncertainty, and creaturely limitation while refusing both despair and fanciful symbolism. H7097 marks an extremity; the inspired context reveals whether that extremity functions as destination, threshold, warning, measurement, or hope.
Deut.30.4
H7097 is a Hebrew noun for an extremity or end. Its concrete range includes an edge, tip, border, side, frontier, or outermost part, while temporal and expansive constructions can denote the end of a period or the far reaches of a land.
The Old Testament’s language of borders, exile, and gathering prepares for the canonical vision of God bringing people from many nations into one redeemed people through Christ. The New Testament sends witnesses toward the earth’s far reaches and promises a final gathering, but those connections should be made through the storyline of redemption rather than by treating later Greek boundary terms as lexical equivalents of H7097.