Dictionaries :: Consume

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Consume:

kon-sum' (akhal, kalah, tamam; analisko): In Old Testament ‘akhal ("to eat," "devour") occurs very frequently, and is translated "consumed" (Ge 31:40; Ex 15:7; Ps 78:63, etc.); kalah ("to finish") is also frequently translated "consume," "consumed" (Ge 41:30; Ex 32:10; Ps 59:13, etc.); tamam, "to be perfect," "finished" (Nu 17:13; De 2:15; Ps 73:19, etc.). There are many other words translated "consume" and "consumed," e.g. cuph, "to end" (Jer 8:13; Zec 1:2,3); balah, "to fade," "wear away" (Job 13:28; Ps 49:14); gazal, implying violence (Job 24:19); caphah, "to end" (Ge 19:15,17; Isa 7:20, etc.); ashesh, "to be old" (Ps 6:7; 31:9,10 the King James Version); maqaq, "to become completed" (Eze 4:17; Zec 14:12 bis); ‘asah kalah is rendered "utterly consume" (Ne 9:31); analisko, "to use up," occurs in Lu 9:54; Ga 5:15; 2Th 2:8 (the King James Version); dapanao, "to spend," is translated "consume" in Jas 4:3 (the Revised Version (British and American) "spend"); katanalisko, "to consume utterly," occurs only in Heb 12:29; "for our God is a consuming fire."

In the Revised Version (British and American) "devour," "devoured" are several times substituted for "consume," "consumed," e.g. Job 20:26; Jer 49:27; Nu 16:35; "boil well" (Eze 24:10); for "be consumed with dying" (Nu 17:13), "perish all of us"; "consume" is substituted for "corrupt" in Mt 6:19; "my spirit is consumed," for "my breath is corrupt" (Job 17:1); instead of "the flame consumeth the chaff" (Isa 5:24) we have "as the dry grass sinketh down in the flame"; and for "whom the Lord shall consume" (2Th 2:8), the Revised Version (British and American) reads (after a different text) "whom the Lord Jesus shall slay," "consume" in the American Revised Version, margin.

Written by W. L. Walker

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words

Consume:

"to use up, spend up, especially in a bad sense, to destroy," is said of the destruction of persons,

(a) literally, Luk 9:54 and the RV marg. of 2Th 2:8 (text, "shall slay");

(b) metaphorically, Gal 5:15 "(that) ye be not consumed (one of another)."

Consume:

"to consume utterly, wholly" (kata, intensive), is said, in Hbr 12:29, of God as "a consuming fire."

Consume:

lit., "to cause to disappear, put out of sight," came to mean "to do away with" (a, negative, phaino, "to cause to appear"), said of the destructive work of moth and rust, Mat 6:19, 20 (RV, "consume," AV, "corrupt").
See CORRUPT, DISFIGURE, PERISH, VANISH.

Note: Dapanao, "to expend, be at an expense," is translated "consume" in the AV of Jam 4:3 (RV, "spend").
See SPEND.