Abhorring or loathing concerns the person, thing or conduct named by a passage, and the text assesses the response through its setting. Deuteronomy forbids abhorring the Edomite and Egyptian for its stated reasons.
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through theConnect page. Screenshots are helpful.
Reader summary
Full entry for תַּעָב (H8581) · Open the biblical lexicon
Abhorring or loathing concerns the person, thing or conduct named by a passage, and the text assesses the response through its setting. Deuteronomy forbids abhorring the Edomite and Egyptian for its stated reasons.
The BSB source-word alignment has 22 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include despise (2), . . . (1), [and] abhorred (1), abhors (1), and abhor (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Deuteronomy 7:26. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (6), Deuteronomy (4), Job (4), Ezekiel (2).
Abhorring or loathing concerns the person, thing or conduct named by a passage, and the text assesses the response through its setting. Deuteronomy forbids abhorring the Edomite and Egyptian for its stated reasons. Amos and Micah condemn people who abhor truthful correction or justice. Isaiah addresses a despised servant within the Lord's promise, and Job reports that his friends despise him amid his suffering.
Psalm 107 describes fools afflicted through their rebellious ways and iniquities loathing food before their appeal and rescue. The verb does not make every experience of disgust morally justified, nor does it make the person who is despised guilty. Teach the actual object, speaker and assessment. A congregation must not use this vocabulary to cultivate ethnic contempt, dismiss a sufferer through disgust, or diagnose a person's inability to eat as spiritual rebellion.
A prohibition of ethnic abhorrence, rejected truth and justice, a despised servant, hostile friends and loathed food require different moral readings. The verb alone supplies no permission to despise a person.
Do not despise an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land.
The command forbids abhorring the Edomite and Egyptian, giving kinship and former residence as its stated reasons.
There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate and despise him who speaks with integrity.
The rebuke names hatred of correction at the gate and abhorrence of a person who speaks truthfully.
Now hear this, O leaders of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and pervert all that is right,
Leaders are addressed as abhorring justice and perverting equity within the prophet's accusation of their wrongdoing.
Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel, to Him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the Servant of rulers: “Kings will see You and rise, and princes will bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen You.”
The Lord addresses the despised one within the servant passage's announced honor and faithfulness.
All my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.
Job reports his close friends' abhorrence and the turning of loved ones against him, without making their attitude proof of his guilt.
They loathed all food and drew near to the gates of death.
People identified as fools afflicted through rebellion and iniquities loathe food and approach death before their cry and the Lord's rescue.
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. to loathe , i.e. (morally) detest
to loathe, i.e. (morally) detest BDB: be abhorred Usage: (make to be) abhor(-red), (be, commit more, do) abominable(-y), × utterly.
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.
תַּעָב 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.
Abhorrence cannot be treated as morally reliable simply because it feels strong. Deuteronomy gives a direct prohibition concerning named neighboring peoples. Amos and Micah expose contempt directed at truthful correction and justice, showing an attitude that protects wrongdoing. Isaiah's despised servant and Job's rejected friendship require attention to the person receiving contempt rather than agreement with those expressing it.
Psalm 107 supplies a different object altogether: food loathed by the fools whose rebellion and iniquities the psalm has named within the psalm's narrated appeal and rescue. Teach these distinctions openly. A congregation can oppose injustice while refusing contempt for a person's origin, condition or vulnerability. It should listen to people rejected by trusted friends and provide appropriate care without diagnosing their worth through others' disgust.
This verb cannot classify every strong aversion as righteous or turn a bodily response into a verdict about personal rebellion.
Deut.23.7
The verb's forms and objects distinguish abhorring, being abhorred and loathing food within the tagged witnesses. Twenty-two BSB tokens in twenty verses remain separate from canonical twenty-two; blank artifact transliteration is preserved and moral assessment is not inferred from intensity or a stem label.
Acts 10:34-48 records Peter's declaration of God's impartiality within his proclamation of Jesus and the Gentile hearers' reception of the Holy Spirit. This is a canonical comparison challenging contempt based on people's origin, not a direct quotation of this Hebrew verb or a denial of the passage's stated gospel.