(1) "Firm," "stiff," opposite to soft: Job 41:24, yatsaq, "to be firm," "his heart .... as hard as a piece of the nether millstone," the Revised Version (British and American) "firm"; Ezekiel 3:7, qasheh, "sharp," "hard of heart"; chazaq, "firm," "As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead"; Jeremiah 5:3, "They have made their faces harder than a rock"; Proverbs 21:29, `azaz, "to make strong," "hard," "impudent," "a wicked man hardeneth his face"; Proverbs 13:15 probably belongs here also where 'ethan is translated "hard": "The way of the transgressor is hard," the English Revised Version "The way of the treacherous is rugged"; the Hebrew word means, "lasting," "firm," poet. "rocks" (the earth's foundations, Micah 6:2), and the meaning seems to be, not that the way (path) of transgressors, or the treacherous (Delitzsch has "uncultivated"), is hard (rocky) to them, but that their way, or mode of acting, is hard, unsympathetic, unkind, "destitute of feeling in things which, as we say, would soften a stone" (Delitzsch on passage); also Matthew 25:24, skleros, "stiff," "thou art a hard man"; The Wisdom of Solomon 11:4, skleros, "hard stone," the Revised Version (British and American) "flinty rock," margin "the steep rock."

(2) "Sore," "trying," "painful," qasheh (Exodus 1:14, "hard service"; Deuteronomy, Exodus 26:6; 2 Samuel 3:39; Psalms 60:3; Isaiah 14:3); qashah "to have it hard" (Genesis 35:16-17; Deuteronomy 15:18); `athaq, "stiff" (Psalms 94:4 the King James Version, "They utter and speak hard things"); skleros (John 6:60, "This is a hard saying"--hard to accept, hard in its nature; Acts 9:5 the King James Version; Acts 26:14; Jude 1:15, "hard speeches"; The Wisdom of Solomon 19:13).

(3) "Heavy," "pressing hard," kabhedh, "weighty" (Ezekiel 3:5-6, "a people of a strange speech and of a hard language," the Revised Version margin (Hebrew) "deep of lip and heavy of tongue"); camakh, "to lay" (Psalms 88:7, "Thy wrath lieth hard upon me").

(4) "Difficult," "hard to do," "know," etc., pala', "difficult to be done" (Genesis 18:14, "Is anything too hard for Yahweh?"; Jeremiah 32:17,27; Deuteronomy 17:8; 2 Samuel 13:2); qasheh (Exodus 18:26, "hard causes"); qashah (Deuteronomy 1:17; 2 Kings 2:10); chidhah, "something twisted," "involved," "an enigma"; compare Judges 14:14 (1 Kings 10:1; 2 Chronicles 9:1, "to prove Solomon with hard questions"); 'ahidhan, Aramaic (Daniel 5:12); duskolos, literally, "difficult about food," "hard to please," hence, "difficult to accomplish" (Mark 10:24, "How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God"); dusnoetos, "hard to be understood" (Hebrews 5:11; 2 Peter 3:16; compare Ecclesiastes 3:21, "things too hard for thee," chalepos).

(5) "Close," or "near to" (hard by), naghash, "to come nigh" (Judges 9:52, the American Standard Revised Version "near"); dabhaq and dabheq, "to follow hard after" (Judges 20:45; Psalms 63:8, etc.); 'etsel, "near" (1 Kings 21:1); le'ummath, "over against" (Leviticus 3:9); `adh, "to" "even to" (1 Chronicles 19:4, the King James Version "hard by," the Revised Version (British and American) "even to").

Hardiness occurs in Judith 16:10 thrasos, the Revised Version (British and American) "boldness."

Hardness is the translation of mutsaq, "something poured out," "dust wetted," "running into clods" (Job 38:38), the Revised Version (British and American) "runneth into a mass"; "hardness of heart" occurs in the Gospels; in Mark 3:5, it is porosis, "hardness," "callousness"; Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5; 16:14, sklerokardia, "dryness," "stiffness of heart"; compare Ecclesiasticus 16:10; in Romans 2:5, it is sklerotes; in 2 Timothy 2:3 the King James Version we have, "Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ," the Revised Version (British and American) "Suffer hardship with me" (corrected text), margin "Take thy part in suffering hardship" (kakopatheo, "to suffer evil").

Hardly occurs in the Old Testament (Exodus 13:15), "Pharaoh would hardly let us go," qashah, literally, "hardened to let us go," the Revised Version margin "hardened himself against letting us go"; "hardly bestead" (Isaiah 8:21) is the translation of qadshah, the American Standard Revised Version "sore distressed." In the New Testament "hardly" is the translation of duskolos, "hard to please," "difficult," meaning not scarcely or barely, but with difficulty (Matthew 19:23, "A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven," the Revised Version (British and American) "it is hard for"; Mark 10:23; Luke 18:24, "how hardly" ("with what difficulty")); of mogis, "with labor," "pain," "trouble" (Luke 9:39, "hardly departeth from him" ("painfully")); of molis "with toil and fatigue" (Acts 27:8, the Revised Version (British and American) "with difficulty"; The Wisdom of Solomon 9:16, "Hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth"; Ecclesiasticus 26:29, "A merchant shall hardly keep himself from wrong doing"; 29:6, "He shall hardly receive the half," in each instance the word is molis, but in the last two instances we seem to see the transition to "scarcely"; compare also Exodus 13:15).

The Revised Version has "too hard" for "hidden" (Deuteronomy 30:11, margin "wonderful"); "hardness" for "boldness" (of face) (Ecclesiastes 8:1); for "sorrow" (Lamentations 3:65); "deal hardly with me" for "make yourselves strong to me" (Job 19:3); omits "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Acts 9:5, corrected text); "hardship" for "trouble" (2 Timothy 2:9).

W. L. Walker

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

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