תְּלָאָה

# Tĕlā'āh (Hardship): A Hebrew Word of Struggle The Hebrew word *tĕlā'āh*, appearing four times in the biblical text, denotes hardship or difficulty—the kind of exhausting struggle that wears on a person. Based on its limited but consistent occurrence, this term captures a specific dimension of human suffering: not sudden calamity, but the grinding burden of sustained difficulty. The word's rarity in Scripture suggests it was employed selectively to convey a particular quality of distress rather than serving as a general term for adversity. The word's minimal occurrence across only four instances makes detailed analysis of its range challenging from usage patterns alone. However, the consistent translation as "hardship" indicates the word retained a stable meaning throughout its appearances in biblical texts. This suggests scribes and authors deployed *tĕlā'āh* when they needed to express a concept distinct enough to warrant its own term, even if other words for suffering or difficulty were available. Its preservation across multiple contexts indicates the concept was considered theologically or narratively significant enough to maintain in Hebrew literature. For readers of biblical texts, *tĕlā'āh* represents an acknowledgment that hardship—difficult, prolonged, wearing struggle—was a recognized category of human experience worthy of naming. The word's modest frequency hints that biblical writers distinguished between different types of adversity

AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.