Hard

Hard - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

H`ARD, a.

1. Firm; solid; compact; not easily penetrated, or separated into parts; not yielding to pressure; applied to material bodies, and opposed to soft; as hard wood; hard flesh; a hard apple.

2. Difficult; not easy to the intellect.

In which are some things hard to be understood. 2 Pet 3.

The hard causes they brought to Moses. Exo 18.

3. Difficult of accomplishment; not easy to be done or executed. A hard task; a disease hard to cure.

Is any thing too hard for the Lord? Gen 18.

4. Full of difficulties or obstacles; not easy to be traveled; as a hard way.

5. Painful; difficult; distressing.

Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor. Gen 35.

6. Laborious; fatiguing; attended with difficulty or pain, or both; as hard work or labor; hard duty; hard service.

7. Oppressive; rigorous; severe; cruel; as hard bondage; a hard master. Exo 1. Isa 14.

8. Unfeeling; insensible; not easily moved by pity; not susceptible of kindness, mercy or other tender affections; as a hard heart.

9. Severe; harsh; rough; abusive.

Have you given him any hard words of late?

10. Unfavorable; unkind; implying blame of another; as hard thoughts.

11. Severe; rigorous; oppressive. The enemy was compelled to submit to hard terms. So we say, a hard bargain; hard conditions.

12. Unreasonable; unjust. It is hard to punish a man for speculative opinions. It is a hard case.

13. Severe; pinching with cold; rigorous; tempestuous; as a hard winter; hard weather.

14. Powerful; forcible; urging; pressing close on.

The stag was too hard for the horse.

The disputant was too hard for his antagonist.

15. Austere; rough; acid; sour; as liquors.

The cider is hard.

16. Harsh; stiff; forced; constrained; unnatural.

Others--make the figures harder than the marble itself.

His diction is hard, his figures too bold.

17. Not plentiful; not prosperous; pressing; distressing; as hard times, when markets are bad, and money of course scarce.

18. Avaricious; difficult in making bargains; close. Mat 25.

19. Rough; of coarse features; as a hard face or countenance.

20. Austere; severe; rigorous.

21. Rude; unpolished or unintelligible.

A people of hard language. Ezek 3.

22. Coarse; unpalatable or scanty; as hard fare.

H`ARD, adv. Close; near; as in the phrase,hard by. In this phrase,the word retains its original sense of pressed, or pressing.

[L. pressus.]

1. With pressure; with urgency; hence, diligently; laboriously; earnestly; vehemently; importunately; as, to work hard for a living.

And pray'd so hard for mercy from the prince.

2. With difficulty; as, the vehicle moves hard.

3. Uneasily; vexatiously.

4. Closely; so as to raise difficulties.

The question is hard set.

5. Fast; nimbly; rapidly; vehemently; as, to run hard, that is, with pressure or urgency.

6. Violently; with great force; tempestuously; as, the wind blows hard, or it blows hard.

7. With violence; with a copious descent of water; as, it rains hard.

8. With force; as, to press hard.

Hard-a-lee, in seamen's language, an order to put the helm close to the lee side of the ship, to tack or keep her head to the wind; also, that situation of the helm.

Hard-a-weather, an order to put the helm close to the weather or windward side of the ship; also, that position of the helm.

Hard-a-port, an order to put the helm close to the larboard side of a ship.

Hard-a-starboard, an order to put the helm close to the starboard side of a ship.

Harden - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

H`ARDEN, v.t. h`ardn. To make hard or more hard; to make firm or compact; to indurate; as, to harden iron or steel; to harden clay.

1. To confirm in effrontery; to make impudent; as, to harden the face.

2. To make obstinate, unyielding or refractory; as, to harden the neck. Jer 19.

3. To confirm in wickedness, opposition or enmity; to make obdurate.

Why then do ye harden your hearts, as Pharaoh and the Egyptians hardened their hearts? 1 Sam 6.

So God is said to harden the heart, when he withdraws the influences of his spirit from men, and leaves them to pursue their own corrupt inclinations.

4. To make insensible or unfeeling; as, to harden one against impressions of pity or tenderness.

5. To make firm; to endure with constancy.

I would harden myself in sorrow. Job 6.

6. To inure; to render firm or less liable to injury, by exposure or use; as, to harden to a climate or to labor.

H`ARDEN, v.i. h`ardn. To become hard or more hard; to acquire solidity or more compactness. Mortar hardens by drying.

1. To become unfeeling.

2. To become inured.

3. To indurate, as flesh.

Hardly - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

H`ARDLY, adv. [See Hard.] With difficulty; with great labor.

Recovering hardly what he lost before.

1. Scarcely; barely; almost not.

Hardly shall you find any one so bad, but he desires the credit of being thought good.

2. Not quite or wholly. The object is so distant we can hardly see it. The veal is hardly done. The writing is hardly completed.

3. Grudgingly, as an injury.

4. Severely; unfavorably; as, to think hardly of public measures.

5. Rigorously; oppressively. The prisoners were hardly used or treated.

6. Unwelcomely; harshly.

Such information comes very hardly and harshly to a grown man.

7. Coarsely; roughly; not softly.

Heaven was her canopy, bare earth her bed;

So hardly lodged.

Hardness - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

H`ARDNESS, n. [See Hard.] Firmness; close union of the component parts; compactness; solidity; the quality of bodies which resists impression; opposed to softness and fluidity.

1. Difficulty to be understood.

2. Difficulty to be executed or accomplished; as the hardness of an enterprise.

3. Scarcity; penury; difficulty of obtaining money; as the hardness of the times.

4. Obduracy; impenitence; confirmed state of wickedness; as hardness of heart.

5. Coarseness of features; harshness of look; as hardness of favor.

6. Severity of cold; rigor; as the hardness of winter.

7. Cruelty of temper; savageness; harshness.

The blame

May hang upon your hardness.

8. Stiffness; harshness; roughness; as the hardnesses of sculpture.

9. Closeness; niggardliness; stinginess.

10. Hardship; severe labor, trials or sufferings.

Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 2 Tim 2.

hard, har'-di-nes, hard'-nes, hard'-li (qasheh, pala'; skleros) : The senses in which hard is used may be distinguished as:

(1) "Firm," "stiff," opposite to soft: Job 41:24, yatsaq, "to be firm," "his heart .... as hard as a piece of the nether millstone," the Revised Version (British and American) "firm"; Eze 3:7, qasheh, "sharp," "hard of heart"; chazaq, "firm," "As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead"; Jer 5:3, "They have made their faces harder than a rock"; Pr 21:29, `azaz, "to make strong," "hard," "impudent," "a wicked man hardeneth his face"; Pr 13:15 probably belongs here also where 'ethan is translated "hard": "The way of the transgressor is hard," the English Revised Version "The way of the treacherous is rugged"; the Hebrew word means, "lasting," "firm," poet. "rocks" (the earth's foundations, Mic 6:2), and the meaning seems to be, not that the way (path) of transgressors, or the treacherous (Delitzsch has "uncultivated"), is hard (rocky) to them, but that their way, or mode of acting, is hard, unsympathetic, unkind, "destitute of feeling in things which, as we say, would soften a stone" (Delitzsch on passage); also Mt 25:24, skleros, "stiff," "thou art a hard man"; The Wisdom of Solomon 11:4, skleros, "hard stone," the Revised Version (British and American) "flinty rock," margin "the steep rock."

(2) "Sore," "trying," "painful," qasheh (Ex 1:14, "hard service"; Deuteronomy, 26:6; 2Sa 3:39; Ps 60:3; Isa 14:3); qashah "to have it hard" (Ge 35:16,17; De 15:18); `athaq, "stiff" (Ps 94:4 the King James Version, "They utter and speak hard things"); skleros (Joh 6:60, "This is a hard saying"--hard to accept, hard in its nature; Ac 9:5 the King James Version; Ac 26:14; Jude 1:15, "hard speeches"; The Wisdom of Solomon 19:13).

(3) "Heavy," "pressing hard," kabhedh, "weighty" (Eze 3:5,6, "a people of a strange speech and of a hard language," the Revised Version margin (Hebrew) "deep of lip and heavy of tongue"); camakh, "to lay" (Ps 88:7, "Thy wrath lieth hard upon me").

(4) "Difficult," "hard to do," "know," etc., pala', "difficult to be done" (Ge 18:14, "Is anything too hard for Yahweh?"; Jer 32:17,27; De 17:8; 2Sa 13:2); qasheh (Ex 18:26, "hard causes"); qashah (De 1:17; 2Ki 2:10); chidhah, "something twisted," "involved," "an enigma"; compare Jud 14:14 (1Ki 10:1; 2Ch 9:1, "to prove Solomon with hard questions"); 'ahidhan, Aramaic (Da 5:12); duskolos, literally, "difficult about food," "hard to please," hence, "difficult to accomplish" (Mr 10:24, "How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God"); dusnoetos, "hard to be understood" (Heb 5:11; 2Pe 3:16; compare Ecclesiasticus 3:21, "things too hard for thee," chalepos).

(5) "Close," or "near to" (hard by), naghash, "to come nigh" (Jud 9:52, the American Standard Revised Version "near"); dabhaq and dabheq, "to follow hard after" (Jud 20:45; Ps 63:8, etc.); 'etsel, "near" (1Ki 21:1); le'ummath, "over against" (Le 3:9); `adh, "to" "even to" (1Ch 19:4, the King James Version "hard by," the Revised Version (British and American) "even to").

Hardiness occurs in Judith 16:10 thrasos, the Revised Version (British and American) "boldness."

Hardness is the translation of mutsaq, "something poured out," "dust wetted," "running into clods" (Job 38:38), the Revised Version (British and American) "runneth into a mass"; "hardness of heart" occurs in the Gospels; in Mr 3:5, it is porosis, "hardness," "callousness"; Mt 19:8; Mr 10:5; 16:14, sklerokardia, "dryness," "stiffness of heart"; compare Ecclesiasticus 16:10; in Ro 2:5, it is sklerotes; in 2Ti 2:3 the King James Version we have, "Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ," the Revised Version (British and American) "Suffer hardship with me" (corrected text), margin "Take thy part in suffering hardship" (kakopatheo, "to suffer evil").

Hardly occurs in the Old Testament (Ex 13:15), "Pharaoh would hardly let us go," qashah, literally, "hardened to let us go," the Revised Version margin "hardened himself against letting us go"; "hardly bestead" (Isa 8:21) is the translation of qadshah, the American Standard Revised Version "sore distressed." In the New Testament "hardly" is the translation of duskolos, "hard to please," "difficult," meaning not scarcely or barely, but with difficulty (Mt 19:23, "A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven," the Revised Version (British and American) "it is hard for"; Mr 10:23; Lu 18:24, "how hardly" ("with what difficulty")); of mogis, "with labor," "pain," "trouble" (Lu 9:39, "hardly departeth from him" ("painfully")); of molis "with toil and fatigue" (Ac 27:8, the Revised Version (British and American) "with difficulty"; The Wisdom of Solomon 9:16, "Hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth"; Ecclesiasticus 26:29, "A merchant shall hardly keep himself from wrong doing"; 29:6, "He shall hardly receive the half," in each instance the word is molis, but in the last two instances we seem to see the transition to "scarcely"; compare also Ex 13:15).

The Revised Version has "too hard" for "hidden" (De 30:11, margin "wonderful"); "hardness" for "boldness" (of face) (Ec 8:1); for "sorrow" (La 3:65); "deal hardly with me" for "make yourselves strong to me" (Job 19:3); omits "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Ac 9:5, corrected text); "hardship" for "trouble" (2Ti 2:9).

W. L. Walker

har'-d'-n (chazaq, qashah; skleruno):

(1) "Harden" occurs most frequently in the phrase "to harden the heart," or "the neck." This hardening of men's hearts is attributed both to God and to men themselves, e.g. with reference to the hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians; the Hiphil of chazaq, "to make strong," is frequently used in this connection (Ex 4:21, "I will harden his heart," the Revised Version margin (Hebrew) "make strong"; Ex 7:13, "And he hardened P.'s heart," the Revised Version (British and American) "was hardened," margin (Hebrew) "was strong"; Ex 7:22; 8:19; 9:12; 10:20,27, etc.; Ex 14:17, "I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians," the Revised Version margin (Hebrew) "make strong"; compare Jos 11:20); qashah, "to be heavy," "to make hard" (Ex 7:3); kabhedh, "heavy," "slow," "hard," not easily moved (Ex 10:1, the Revised Version margin (Hebrew) "made heavy"). When the hardening is attributed to man's own act kabhedh is generally used (Ex 8:15, "He hardened his heart, and hearkened not," the Revised Version margin (Hebrew) "made heavy"; Ex 8:32, "Pharaoh hardened his heart" (the Revised Version margin as before); Ex 9:7,34; 1Sa 6:6 twice). The "hardening" of men's hearts by God is in the way of punishment, but it is always a consequence of their own self-hardening. In Pharaoh's case we read that "he hardened his heart" against the appeal to free the Israelites; so hardening himself, he became always more confirmed in his obstinacy, till he brought the final doom upon himself. This is how sin is made to become its own punishment. It was not confined to Pharaoh and the Egyptians nor does it belong to the past only. As Paul says (Ro 9:18),"Whom he will he hardeneth" (skleruno); Ex 11:7, "The election obtained it, and the rest were hardened" (the Revised Version (British and American) and King James Version margin, poroo, "to make hard" or "callous");a "Hardening in part hath befallen Israel" (porosis); compare Joh 12:40 (from Isa 6:10), "He hath blinded their eyes, and he hardened their heart"; Isa 63:17, "O Yahweh, why dost thou make us to err from thy ways, and hardenest our heart from thy fear?" (qashach, "to harden"); compare on the other side, as expressing the human blameworthiness, Job 9:4, "Who hath hardened himself against him, and prospered?" Mr 3:5, "being grieved at the hardening of their heart;" Mr 6:52, "Their heart was hardened"; Ro 2:5, "after thy hardness and impenitent heart." In Hebrew religious thought everything was directly attributed to God, and the hardening is God's work, in His physical and ethical constitution and laws of man's nature; but it is always the consequence of human action out of harmony therewith. Other instances of skleruno are in Ac 19:9; Heb 3:8,13,15; 4:7.

(2) "Harden" in the sense of "to fortify one's self" (make one's self hard) is the translation of caladh, "to leap," "exult" (Job 6:10 the King James Version, "I would harden myself in sorrow," the Revised Version (British and American) "Let me exult in pain," margin "harden myself").

(3) In Pr 21:29 "harden" has the meaning of "boldness," "defiance" or "shamelessness" (brazen-faced); `azaz, Hiphil, "to strengthen one's countenance," "A wicked man hardeneth his face"; Delitzsch, "A godless man showeth boldness in his mien"; compare Pr 7:13; Ec 8:1; see also HARD.

For "harden" the Revised Version (British and American) has "stubborn" (Ex 7:14; 9:7, margin "heavy"); "hardenest" (Isa 63:17); "made stiff" (Jer 7:26; 19:15); for "is hardened" (Job 39:16, the American Standard Revised Version "dealeth hardly," and the English Revised Version margin); "at the hardening" instead of "for the hardness" (Mr 3:5); "hardening" for "blindness" (Eph 4:18).

W. L. Walker

See HARD.

Definition

The term “hard” generally refers to something that is persistent, or unyielding.

• The use of “hard” (in various forms) with “heart” refers to people being stubbornly unrepentant or disobedient (usually) to God.

Translation Suggestions

• The term “hard” could also be translated as “rebellious” or “stubborn” or “obstinate” or “unyielding” depending on the context.
• The terms “hardness” or “hardness of heart” or “hard heart” could be translated as “stubbornness” or “persistent rebellion” or “rebellious attitude” or “stubborn disobedience” or “stubbornly not repenting.”
• The phrase “hard of neck” could also be translated as “obstinate” or “rebellious”
• The term “hardened” could also be translated as “stubbornly unrepentant” or “refusing to obey.”
• “Do not harden your heart” could be translated as “do not refuse to repent” or “do not stubbornly keep disobeying.”
• Other ways to translate “hard-headed” or “hard-hearted” could include “stubbornly disobedient” or “continuing to disobey” or “refusing to repent” or “always rebelling.”

(See also: disobey, evil, stiff-necked)

Bible References

Word Data

• Strong’s:

Definition

The term “hard” generally refers to something that is difficult, challenging, or requires great diligence and persistence to be done.

• When used as a modifier, its meaning is similar to “great effort.”

Translation Suggestions

• The term “hard” could also be translated as “difficult” or “persistent” or “diligently” or “challenging,” depending on the context.
• In expressions such as “work hard” or “try hard,” the term “hard” could be translated as “with perseverance” or “diligently.”
• The expression “press hard against” could also be translated as “shove with force” or “push strongly against.”
• To “oppress people with hard labor” could be translated as “force people to work so hard that they suffer” or “cause people to suffer by forcing them to do very difficult work.”
• Depending on context the term “harder” could also be translated as “more difficult” or “more diligently”
• In some contexts “hard” could be translated as “heavy” or “heavily.”
• A different kind of “hard labor” is experienced by a woman who is about to deliver a baby.

Bible References

Word Data

• Strong’s: H2388, H3515, H6381, H7185, H7186, G03180, G14190, G14220, G14230, G25320, G28730, G44560, G44570, G46410, G46420, G46430, G46450, G49120