Bible Dictionary
HURT
Hurt means harm, injury, bruising, breaking, or wrongdoing. Scripture may use it for physical damage, injustice, or the moral corruption of a person or community.
Definition
Hurt means harm, injury, bruising, fracture, breaking, or wrongdoing. It may describe physical damage, unjust treatment, or a condition of moral disease and corruption. Biblical translations use the word for several Hebrew and Greek terms having related meanings.
Biblical Usage
Scripture uses “hurt” for evil or harm, physical breaking and bruising, and injustice. In Jeremiah it can represent moral disease or corruption. The Revised Version sometimes replaces the word with “evil,” “harm,” “injury,” “breach,” “bruise,” or “sick,” according to the context.
Related Figures
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>hurt: The term (noun and verb) represents a large number of Hebrew words, of which the chief are ra` (verb ra`a`), "evil" (Ge 26:29; 1Sa 24:9; Ps 35:4, etc.), and shebher or shebher (from shabhar), "a fracture" or "breaking" (Jer 6:14; 8:11,21; 10:19; compare Ex 22:10,14). In Greek a principal verb is adikeo, "to do injustice" (Lu 10:19; Re 2:11; 6:6, etc.); once the word "hurt" is used in the King James Version (Ac 27:10, story of Paul's shipwreck) for hubris, "injury" (thus the Revised Version (British and American)). In the Revised Version (British and American) "hurt" sometimes takes the place of other words in the King James Version, as "sick" (Pr 23:35), "breach" (Isa 30:26), "bruise" (Jer 30:12; Na 3:19); sometimes, on the other hand, the word in the King James Version is exchanged in the Revised Version (British and American) for "evil" (Jos 24:20), "harm" (Ac 18:10), or, as above, "injury" (Ac 27:10). These references sufficiently show the meaning of the word--harm, bruise, breaking, etc. In Jeremiah (ut supra) the word is used figuratively for moral disease or corruption.</p><p>James Orr</p>