The Meaning and Interpretation of Desire in the Bible

The term desire in the Hebrew Bible covers a wide range of human longings, emotions, and cravings. The direct and explicit term of desire is nevertheless limited to only two roots found in the Decalogue—the verb forms of the lexical roots חמד and אוה, which reflect not only the dynamics of desire occurring in human beings, but also in God. With an comprehensive semantic analysis and an overview of the synonyms and antonyms, the author shows that the verb form of the lexical root אוה denotes a va