Pain

pan (chul, chil, chebhel, chalah, chalchalah, ka'-ebh, ke'ebh, metsar, makh'obh, `amal, tsir; basanizo, ponos, odin): These words signifying various forms of bodily or mental suffering are generally translated "pain"; 28 out of the 34 passages in which the word is used are in the poetical or prophetical books and refer to conditions of mental disquiet or dismay due to the punishment of personal or national sin. There is only one instance where the word is used as a historic record of personal physical pain: the case of the wife of Phinehas (1Sa 4:19), but the same word tsir is used figuratively in Isa 13:8; 21:3; Da 10:16, and translated "pangs" or "sorrows." In other passages where we have the same comparison of consternation in the presence of God's judgments to the pangs of childbirth, the word used is chebhel, as in Isa 66:7; Jer 13:21; 22:23; 49:24. In some of these and similar passages several synonyms are used in the one verse to intensify the impression, and are translated "pain," "pangs," and "sorrows," as in Isa 13:8.

⇒See a list of verses on PAIN in the Bible.

The word most commonly used by the prophets is some form of chul or chil, sometimes with the addition "as of a woman in travail," as in Ps 48:6; Isa 26:18; Jer 6:24; 22:23; Mic 4:10. This pain is referred to the heart (Ps 55:4) or to the head (Jer 30:23; compare Jer 30:5-6). In Eze 30:4, it is the penal affliction of Ethiopia, and in Eze 30:16, the King James Version "Sin (Tanis) shall have great pain" (the Revised Version (British and American) "anguish"); in Isa 23:5 Egypt is sorely pained at the news of the fall of Tyre. Before the invading host of locusts the people are much pained (Joe 2:6 the King James Version). Pain in the sense of toil and trouble in Jer 12:13 is the translation of chalah a word more frequently rendered grieving or sickness, as in 1Ki 14:1; Pr 23:35; Song 2:5; Jer 5:3. The reduplicated form chalchalah is especially used of a twisting pain usually referred to the loins (Isa 21:3; Eze 30:4,9; Na 2:10).

Pain in the original meaning of the word (as it has come down to us through the Old French from the Latin poena) as a penalty inflicted for personal sin is expressed by the words ka'ebh or ke'abh in Job 14:22; 15:20, and in the questioning complaint of the prophet (Jer 15:18). As a judgment on personal sin pain is also expressed by makh'obh in Job 33:19; Jer 51:8, but this word is used in the sense of afflictions in Isa 53:3 in the expression "man of sorrows." The Psalmist (Ps 25:18) praying for deliverance from the afflictions which weighed heavily on him in turn uses the word `amal, and this word which primarily means "toil" or "labor," as in Ec 1:3, or "travail" as in Isa 53:11, is translated "painful" in Ps 73:16, as expressing Asaph's disquiet due to his misunderstanding of the ways of Providence. The "pains of hell" (Ps 116:3 the King James Version), which got hold of the Psalmist in his sickness, is the rendering of the word metsar; the same word is translated "distress" in Ps 118:5. Most of these words have a primary physical meaning of twisting, rubbing or constricting.

⇒See the definition of pain in the KJV Dictionary

In the New Testament, odin is translated "pain" (of death, the Revised Version (British and American) "pang") in Ac 2:24. This word is used to express any severe pain, such as that of travail, or (as in Aeschylus, Choephori, 211) the pain of intense apprehension. The verb from this, odunomai, is used by the Rich Man in the parable to describe his torment (the Revised Version (British and American) "anguish") (Lu 16:24). The related verb sunodino is used in Ro 8:22 and is translated "travailing in pain together." In much the same sense, the word is used by Euripides (Helena, 727).

In Re 12:2 the woman clothed with the sun (basanizomene) was in pain to be delivered; the verb (basanizo) which means "to torture" is used both in Mt 8:6 in the account of the grievously tormented centurion's servant, and in the description of the laboring of the apostles' boat on the stormy Sea of Galilee (Mt 14:24). The former of these seems to have been a case of spinal meningitis. This verb occurs in Thucydides vii.86 (viii.92), where it means "being put to torture." In the two passages in Revelation where pain is mentioned the word is ponos, the pain which affected those on whom the fifth vial was poured (16:10), and in the description of the City of God where there is no more pain (21:4). The primary meaning of this word seems to be "toil," as in Iliad xxi.525, but it is used by Hippocrates to express disease (Aphorisma iv.44).

Alexander Macalister