Sense: joy (emotion)
n. — the emotion of great happiness and pleasure.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy [χαρά] and not with sighing—for that would be harmful to you.
Hebrews 13:17 (NRSV)
In today’s example verse, the author of Hebrews sets up joy as a contrast—“with joy and not with sighing.” Sometimes we understand the meaning of a word or utterance better in contrast. The Bible Sense Lexicon invites opportunities for theological reflection by allowing us to set up other possible contrasts. For example, if we look at some of the other emotional senses in the Bible Sense Lexicon hierarchy, we find ones like “anger,” “anxiety,” “comfort,” “fear,” “sadness,” and “love.” So we can ask ourselves why the author of Hebrews might have wanted to emphasize “joy” in this context, rather than, say, love or reverential fear. The author could have said, “Do this with love and not with anger.” How would these contrasts have changed the meaning? Why is it that lack of joy would have been particularly harmful, rather than lack of some other kind of emotion? When reading, try some of these contrasts as a way to slow down and mull the text over.
What is the Bible Sense Lexicon?
Sense of the Day is based on content from Logos’ Bible Sense Lexicon, which organizes biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words by meaning based on a variety of semantic relationships. Sense of the Day provides examples of senses in context, along with insight into their application for theology and interpretation.
The Bible Sense Lexicon is a Logos dataset available in Logos 5 Gold and higher base packages. If you’re enrolled in the Logos Academic Discount Program, you can also find the Bible Sense Lexicon in the Biblical Languages base package. Take your studies even further by exploring semantic domains, engaging the biblical text like never before.
Learn more about the Bible Sense Lexicon.