So, in Hebrew, the main verb for blessing is brk. This is used more than three hundred times throughout the Old Testament and out of these hundreds only seven of them fall into this category whereby they mean curse rather than blessing. By this I mean, if you were to read the verse with “bless” where the Hebrew has brk the verse would make little sense. However, if you change its meaning to “curse” suddenly it makes sense. The seven verses are: 1 Kings 21:10, 13; Job 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9 and Psalm 10:3. To demonstrate what I mean by the context determining the meaning, here are all seven verse with blessing language first, and then curse language:
| Blessing | Curse | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Kings 21:10 | And seat two men, sons of wickedness opposite him (Naboth) and let them witness against him, saying “You blessed God and the king” and bring him out and stone him so he dies. | And seat two men, sons of wickedness opposite him (Naboth) and let them witness against him, saying “You cursed God and the king” and bring him out and stone him so he dies. |
| 1 Kings 21:13 | And the two men came, sons of wickedness, and they sat opposite him and witnessed against him and the men of wickedness said against Naboth before the people, “Naboth blessed God and the king.” And they brought him out to the outside of the city and they stoned him with stones and he died. | And the two men came, sons of wickedness, and they sat opposite him and witnessed against him and the men of wickedness said against Naboth before the people, “Naboth cursed God and the king.” And they brought him out to the outside of the city and they stoned him with stones and he died. |
| Job 1:5 | And when the feast days had run its course and Job would send and he would sanctify them and he would get up in the morning and he would offer burnt offerings of the number of all of them for Job said, “Perhaps my children have sinned and they blessed God in their hearts.” Thus Job used to do. | And when the feast days had run its course and Job would send and he would sanctify them and he would get up in the morning and he would offer burnt offerings of the number of all of them for Job said, “Perhaps my children have sinned and they cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job used to do. |
| Job 1:11 | (Satan speaking) “But on the other hand please stretch out your hand and touch all that belongs to him. Surely he will bless you to your face.” | (Satan speaking) “But on the other hand please stretch your hand and touch all that belongs to him. Surely he will curse you to your face.” |
| Job 2:5 | (Satan speaking) “But please stretch out your hand and touch to his bones and his flesh. Surely he will bless you to your face.” | (Satan speaking) “But please stretch out your hand and touch to his bones and his flesh. Surely he will curse you to your face.” |
| Job 2:9 | And his [Job’s] wife said to him, “Still you keep persisting in your innocence. Bless God and die.” | And his [Job’s] wife said to him, “Still you keep persisting in your innocence. Curse God and die.” |
| Psalm 10:3 | For the wicked boasts about the desire of his throat and the one greedy for gain blesses and despises the LORD. | For the wicked boasts about the desire of his throat and the one greedy for gain curses and despises the LORD. |
As you can see, each verse makes no sense with blessing language in it, but makes more sense when it is translated with curse language. This begs the question: why use blessing language when you mean curse?
I went looking for the answer to this question in various Bible dictionaries and Hebrew lexicons. I found a possible answer in an article on brk in The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew edited by David J.A. Clines* which notes that brk is on the rare occasion used when the curse is directed at God or a king. This is a feature which all these passages have. In 1 Kings 21, Naboth is accused of cursing God and the king and is stoned to death for it. In Job 1-2, Satan is trying to prove that if Job suffers enough he will curse God rather than bless him, something his wife eventually encourages him to do. And in Psalm 10 the greedy person curses and despises God. The feature they all share is that the writer of each book wants to say that someone cursed God. The king mentioned in 1 Kings is not very important here I don’t think. If God was not mentioned as well the writer of 1 Kings would probably have used normal curse language; qbb or qll or ʾrr. There are quite a few choices when it comes to curse language in Hebrew. However, it is cursing God that appears to be the big problem for these writers. But why?
If we turn to Leviticus 24:15 we find the answer. Here Moses is instructed to tell the people of Israel: “Any person when they curse their God shall bear the sin.” This is followed in verse 16 by a command that anyone who blasphemes God shall be put to death. In Hebrew blasphemy and cursing are synonyms and therefore cursing God is a form of blasphemy which is punishable by death under the law.
As a result of this, if you were to read through the Old Testament, I don’t believe you would find a single instance other than those mentioned at the beginning of this post where God is cursed by a person and curse language is used in Hebrew with the exception of Lev 24:15 where qll, one of the major Hebrew curse words is used. By using blessing language instead, the writers of these books made sure they didn’t even come close to breaking the command not to curse God by avoiding even writing the words “curse God” in their work. The seven verses we have looked at were the few occasions where they could not avoid saying this in some way in order to tell the story, so they got around it by using “bless” instead and letting their readers figure out that it was “curse” that they meant (because otherwise the narrative just doesn’t make sense to anyone reading it).
* “ברך,” in The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, ed. David J.A. Clines (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 267-271.
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