Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
Psalm 116:15
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. Or: grievous, costly, in the LORD's sight.
Psalm 116:15, in every translation this tool compares.
English precious and English grievous describe nearly opposite reactions, treasuring something versus being pained by it. Yaqar's ordinary Hebrew sense leans toward precious or valuable, but a minority reading, built on the word's sense in the closely related language Aramaic, argues for grievous instead, a real difference in what the verse claims God feels about a believer's death.
Because yaqar usually means precious or valuable, but a minority scholarly reading, defended etymologically through Aramaic, argues it means grievous or costly here instead, producing a nearly opposite theological claim about how God regards the death of the faithful.
Every major version reads precious, following yaqar's dominant Hebrew sense. A minority of scholars, most notably John Emerton, argue for grievous or costly, based on the word's attested Aramaic and later Rabbinic Hebrew sense.
יָקָר yaqar · H3368
Yaqar's ordinary Hebrew range covers precious, valuable, weighty, or honored, and this is how the word functions in its other eight occurrences across the Psalms. The grievous reading depends on importing a sense well-attested in Aramaic and Rabbinic Hebrew but, by Emerton's own admission, not clearly attested in Hebrew itself at this early period, making the grievous reading linguistically possible but resting on evidence from a related, later-developing language rather than from Hebrew usage contemporary with the psalm.
English precious and grievous land in almost opposite emotional registers, and a reader meeting only the traditional precious rendering would never guess that a real, if minority, scholarly case exists for reading the verse as saying God finds the death of His faithful costly or painful rather than something to be treasured.
When a minority reading depends on evidence from a related language rather than the text's own contemporary vocabulary, weigh it seriously but note the evidentiary gap. Grievous for yaqar is a real proposal, but it leans on Aramaic usage not securely attested in Hebrew at this period.
Precious, the traditional and dominant reading, treats the verse as comfort: God treasures the death of His faithful ones rather than treating it lightly. Grievous, the minority reading, treats the verse as lament: death, even of the faithful, costs God something, a reading some find pastorally and theologically more satisfying but resting on thinner direct Hebrew evidence.
- yaqar's ordinary sense elsewhere in the Psalms: Psalm 49:8; 72:14
- John Emerton's argument for 'grievous,' based on Aramaic and Rabbinic Hebrew usage
