2193. zaak

Lexical Summary

zaak: To cry out, to call for help, to summon

Original Word: זָעַךְ
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: za`ak
Pronunciation: zah-ak'
Phonetic Spelling: (zaw-ak')
KJV: be extinct
NASB: extinguished
Word Origin: [a primitive root]

1. to extinguish

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance

be extinct

A primitive root; to extinguish -- be extinct.

NAS Exhaustive Concordance

Word Origin
a prim. root
Definition
to extinguish
NASB Translation
extinguished (1).

Brown-Driver-Briggs

[זָעַךְ] verb extinguish, only

Niph`al be extinguished יָמַי נִזְעָ֑כוּ Job 17:1 ("" רוּחִי חֻבָּ֑לָה). Elsewhere always דעך (q. v.), and so in cognate languages. Probably error for נדעכו.

Topical Lexicon

Canonical Occurrence

The verb appears once, in Job 17:1. “My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me.”

Literary Setting

Job’s lament comes in the middle of the third cycle of speeches. His friends have offered increasingly harsh diagnoses of his suffering, and Job, feeling abandoned, articulates total exhaustion. The verb poignantly captures that moment when inward vitality collapses and nothing seems left but the pull of the grave.

Imagery and Sense

The word evokes internal disintegration—breath, spirit, or life-force given over to decay. In ancient Near-Eastern thought, breath was the distinguishing mark of life (Genesis 2:7). When Job says it is “broken,” he is not merely short of breath; he is acknowledging that the animating gift of God now feels spoiled, spent, and beyond repair.

Theology of Human Frailty

1. Mortality laid bare. Job’s experience confirms Psalm 39:5, “Every man is but a vapor.”
2. The need for a Redeemer. Job 19:25 looks beyond his brokenness: “I know that my Redeemer lives.” The unique verb accentuates the distance between human inability and divine sufficiency.
3. Divine sovereignty and mystery. Job never receives a medical explanation; instead, the Lord eventually answers from the whirlwind (Job 38–41), reminding readers that ultimate answers reside in God’s character, not in human self-diagnosis.

Intertextual Connections

• Psalm 22:14 describes a similar dissolution: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed.”
• 2 Corinthians 4:16 echoes the theme: “Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
• Hebrews 12:3–4 urges believers who feel “weary and faint-hearted” to fix their eyes on Jesus.

Ministry and Pastoral Application

• Validates lament. Scripture gives vocabulary for believers who feel their strength has rotted away. Lament becomes an act of faith, not rebellion.
• Encourages honest intercession. Friends of the suffering should resist shallow counsel and instead sit, listen, and pray, following Job’s initial comforters before they began to accuse (Job 2:13).
• Points to resurrection hope. The verb’s imagery of spent breath finds its ultimate answer in John 20:22, where the risen Christ “breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” Divine breath restores what human breath cannot.

Preaching Pathways

1. From broken spirit to living hope—trace Job 17:1 to 1 Peter 1:3.
2. Compare bodily decay (Job 17:1) with promised renewal (Isaiah 40:31).
3. Highlight Christ’s own cry of forsakenness (Matthew 27:46) as the redemptive counterpart to Job’s despair.

Devotional Reflection

When personal strength fails, believers are invited to confess their emptiness and wait on the God who “gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it” (Isaiah 42:5). The lone appearance of this verb serves as a reminder that one honest sentence of Scripture can carry a lifetime of comfort.

Forms and Transliterations

נִזְעָ֗כוּ נזעכו niz‘āḵū niz·‘ā·ḵū nizAchu

Englishman's Concordance

Job 17:1
HEB: חֻ֭בָּלָה יָמַ֥י נִזְעָ֗כוּ קְבָרִ֥ים לִֽי׃
NAS: my days are extinguished, The grave
KJV: my days are extinct, the graves
INT: is broken my days are extinguished the grave

1 Occurrence

Strong's Hebrew 2193
1 Occurrence

niz·‘ā·ḵū — 1 Occ.