Properly, something disgusting (morally), i.e. (as noun) an abhorrence ; especially idolatry or (concretely) an idol
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תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah) is the Hebrew word for abomination — what is morally and religiously repulsive to YHWH, the divinely-calibrated measure of what is detestable. The local index currently counts about 118 occurrences, spanning cultic (idolatry, blemished sacrifice), ethical (lying, unjust weights, shedding innocent blood), relational (sexual sins), and social abominations.
Reader summary
Full entry for תּוֹעֵבַה (H8441) · Open the biblical lexicon
תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah) is the Hebrew word for abomination — what is morally and religiously repulsive to YHWH, the divinely-calibrated measure of what is detestable. The local index currently counts about 118 occurrences, spanning cultic (idolatry, blemished sacrifice), ethical (lying, unjust weights, shedding innocent blood), relational (sexual sins), and.
The BSB source-word alignment has 117 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include abominations (18), is detestable (17), the abominations (9), your abominations (8), an abomination (7).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 43:32. Its strongest book concentrations include Ezekiel (43), Proverbs (21), Deuteronomy (17), Jeremiah (8).
תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah) is the Hebrew word for abomination — what is morally and religiously repulsive to YHWH, the divinely-calibrated measure of what is detestable. The local index currently counts about 118 occurrences, spanning cultic (idolatry, blemished sacrifice), ethical (lying, unjust weights, shedding innocent blood), relational (sexual sins), and social abominations. The word is YHWH's moral vocabulary at its most direct: this is what he calls disgusting.
Proverbs 6:16-19 gives toevah its most memorable ethical catalog: 'There are six things YHWH hates, seven that are a toevah to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.' The seven toevot are not ceremonial violations but character and conduct failures: pride, deception, violence, scheming, eagerness for evil, false testimony, and divisiveness. The toevah-list is a moral anatomy of the covenant-breaker.
Deuteronomy 7:25 gives toevah its idolatry-warning use: 'the carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourself, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is a toevah to YHWH your God. And you shall not bring an abomination (toevah) into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.' The idol is a toevah — and the person who brings a toevah into their house becomes like the toevah. Moral contagion is embedded in the toevah-concept: what is abominable corrupts those who embrace it.
Ezekiel uses toevah 43 times, more than any other biblical book. Ezekiel 5:9 — 'I will do with you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your toevot' — establishes the toevot as the grounds for Jerusalem's most severe judgment. Chapters 8-11 catalog the toevot in the temple: idol worship in the inner court, women weeping for Tammuz at the temple gate, men with backs to YHWH's temple worshipping the sun (Ezek 8:10-16). The temple itself, the holiest place in Israel, has been filled with toevot — and YHWH abandons it (Ezek 10-11). The toevah in the holy place is the most extreme form of defilement: the sacred space corrupted by what is abominable to the God who dwells there.
Proverbs 11:1 and 12:22 give toevah its social-ethics application: 'A false balance is a toevah to YHWH, but a just weight is his delight. Lying lips are a toevah to YHWH, but those who act faithfully are his delight.' The toevah in commercial life (false weights) and speech (lying lips) is the everyday counterpart to the idols and the temple abominations: YHWH calls dishonest commerce and false speech as abominable as the worship of other gods. Covenant faithfulness in daily life is the inverse of the toevah.
For the preacher, תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah) gives the congregation the moral vocabulary of what is genuinely repulsive to YHWH — and it is more comprehensive than the ceremonial categories often assumed. The seven toevot of Proverbs 6 are primarily about character and social integrity, not ritual purity.
תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah) has about 118 occurrences in the local index. Deuteronomy uses it for the idols of the nations and the blemished sacrifices that defile the covenant relationship with YHWH (7:25, 17:1, 18:12, 27:15). Proverbs uses it for the daily ethical violations that are abominable to YHWH (6:16-19, 11:1, 12:22, 15:8-9, 17:15, 20:23). Ezekiel (43 occurrences) deploys toevah as the comprehensive indictment of Jerusalem before its fall (chs.
5-20). Isaiah and Jeremiah use it for idolatry and corrupt worship. The word is consistently the moral barometer of what YHWH finds intolerable in the covenant relationship.
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to Him:
The seven toevot: haughty eyes, lying tongue, hands shedding innocent blood, a heart devising wicked plans, feet rushing to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers (v. 17-19). The list is primarily ethical and social: the abominations are pride, deception, violence, scheming, eagerness for evil, false testimony, and divisiveness — not primarily ceremonial.
The toevah vocabulary here serves Proverbs' purpose of forming the covenant person for flourishing social life. What YHWH calls toevah is the anti-pattern of shalom.
You must burn up the images of their gods; do not covet the silver and gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it; for it is detestable to the Lord your God.
The idol as toevah — and the contagion warning: 'You shall not bring an abomination (toevah) into your house.' The idol is not merely wrong but corrupting: the one who covets and keeps the idol becomes ensnared in it. The toevah here is not a category but a moral field — to bring the toevah home is to import the abomination into the sacred domestic space. The destruction of the idol (burn it) is the only safe response to the toevah.
The NT parallel is idolatry as the worship of the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25) — and the same contagion warning: 'flee from idolatry' (1 Cor 10:14).
Because of all your abominations, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again.
Ezekiel's comprehensive toevah-indictment: Jerusalem's toevot are the grounds for the most unprecedented judgment in Israel's history. Ezekiel 8-11 catalogs the toevot in the temple: from the idol of jealousy (8:3-5) to the seventy elders burning incense to idols in the dark (8:10-12) to the women weeping for Tammuz (8:14) to the men worshipping the sun with backs to YHWH's temple (8:16).
The toevot in the temple are the reason YHWH's glory departs (ch. 10-11). The holy place filled with toevot is the prophetic epitome of covenant apostasy.
Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, but an accurate weight is His delight.
The commercial toevah: 'a false balance is a toevah to YHWH.' Commercial dishonesty — rigged scales, deceptive weights — is placed in the same toevah-category as idolatry and false sacrifice. YHWH's abomination vocabulary spans from the temple to the marketplace: what happens in commerce is as morally evaluated as what happens in worship. The contrast (toevah vs.
Ratson, delight) shows that YHWH's moral character is not only reactive against evil but positively delighted in justice. Amos 8:4-7 is the prophetic counterpart: YHWH will never forget any of the deeds of those who rig the scales.
For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord. And because of these detestable things, the Lord your God is driving out the nations before you.
The Canaanite toevot as the ground of displacement: the nations whose practices (child sacrifice, divination, omens, necromancy, v. 10-11) are toevot to YHWH are driven from the land by YHWH because of these toevot. The toevah concept thus has territorial and covenantal weight: the land cannot sustain the toevah indefinitely — YHWH acts to remove it. Leviticus 18:24-28 makes this explicit: the land 'vomits out' those who practice the toevot.
The same land-consequence applies to Israel if they adopt the toevot of the nations (Lev 18:29).
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. Moral disgust that provokes divine rejection; centrally theological—idolatry or covenant violation offensive to God's holiness
Moral disgust that provokes divine rejection; centrally theological—idolatry or covenant violation offensive to God's holiness
properly, something disgusting (morally), i.e. (as noun) an abhorrence; especially idolatry or (concretely) an idol BDB: abomination Usage: abominable (custom, thing), abomination.
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 3 selected witnesses from 118 lexical occurrence verses.
תּוֹעֵבַה is built from this root:
The term indicates the seriousness of dishonesty in God's sight. Proverbs 11:1
The term shows the intensity of God's rejection of moral crookedness. Proverbs 11:20
The word emphasizes the seriousness of actions that violate God's moral standards. Proverbs 6:12-19
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah) gives the preacher YHWH's own moral vocabulary for what is intolerable in the covenant relationship. Three points worth pressing: First, the toevah is not confined to the ceremonial or sexual — Proverbs 6's seven toevot are primarily about character (pride, deception, scheming) and social integrity (shedding innocent blood, lying in court, sowing discord).
The congregation that is careful about ceremonial categories but tolerant of haughty pride and sowing discord needs to hear that both are toevah. Second, the toevah has a contagion principle (Deut 7:25, 'do not bring the toevah into your house'): what we allow into our home and life-space corrupts us toward it. The idol that begins as merely wrong ends as ensnaring.
Third, Ezekiel's 43 uses of toevah culminate in YHWH's glory departing the temple (Ezek 10-11) — the holy space that cannot be cleansed of toevah is abandoned by YHWH. The church's toevah-tolerance is not merely an ethical failure but a theological one: the presence of YHWH does not co-exist indefinitely with what is detestable to him. The good news is that Isaiah 44:19 and Ezekiel 36:25-27 promise that YHWH will cleanse his people from their toevot — the Spirit's work is to replace the toevah-heart with a new heart.
Prov.6.16
תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah) is from the root תָּעַב (taab, H8581, to abhor, to be abominable). The word has no simple English equivalent: 'abomination' retains some of the moral weight but sounds archaic; 'detestable thing' is more accessible. The LXX translates it with bdelygma (G946, abomination), which is the word Jesus uses in Matthew 24:15 for 'the abomination of desolation' (from Daniel 9:27, 11:31, 12:11 — the toevah mashomem, the desolating abomination, the idol or pagan altar set up in the temple's holy place).
The NT's bdelygma/toevah culminates in Revelation 17:4-5 ('Mother of Abominations,' the harlot Babylon) and Revelation 21:27 (nothing that causes toevah/bdelygma will enter the new Jerusalem).
The NT's toevah-language clusters around bdelygma (G946). Matthew 24:15 quotes Daniel's toevah mashomem (the desolating abomination): 'when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place.' The toevah-in-the-holy-place is the sign of the end. Luke 16:15 applies toevah directly to the Pharisees' covetousness: 'what is exalted among men is an abomination (bdelygma) in the sight of God' — the toevah vocabulary is applied to respectability-idolatry, not just ceremonial violation.
Revelation 17:4-5 gives toevah its eschatological form: Babylon the Great is 'the mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations (bdelysmaton).' Revelation 21:27 closes with the new Jerusalem's exclusion: 'nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable (bdelygma) or false.'
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