Sense: to be broken (spirit)
v. — to be weakened or destroyed in spirit.
My spirit is broken (חבל), my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me.
Job 17:1 (NRSV)
One of the main metaphors for despondency in the Bible is brokenness, whether of the heart or of the spirit. Sometimes this brokenness comes as a punishment for sin as in Proverbs 29:1: “One who is often reproved, yet remains stubborn, will suddenly be broken beyond healing.” Sometimes the brokenness is as a result of compunction for one’s own sins as in Psalm 51:17: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Sometimes it is as a result of someone else oppressing a person as in Psalm 109:16: “For he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to their death.” When we, or someone else that we know, is broken in spirit it is important to try to understand why. Job’s sufferings are made that much worse because his “comforters” assume that he is suffering and broken because of his own sin when this doesn’t happen to be the case.
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.