Consume

CONSUME [ISBE]

CONSUME - kon-sum' (akhal, kalah, tamam; analisko): In Old Testament 'akhal ("to eat," "devour") occurs very frequently, and is translated "consumed" (Gen 31:40; Ex 15:7; Ps 78:63, etc.); kalah ("to finish") is also frequently translated "consume," "consumed" (Gen 41:30; Ex 32:10; Ps 59:13, etc.); tamam, "to be perfect," "finished" (Nu 17:13; Dt 2:15; Ps 73:19, etc.). There are many other words translated "consume" and "consumed," e.g. cuph, "to end" (Jer 8:13; Dan 1:44; Zeph 1:2,3); balah, "to fade," "wear away" (Job 13:28; Ps 49:14); gazal, implying violence (Job 24:19); caphah, "to end" (Gen 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" (Ezek 4:17; Zec 14:12 bis); `asah kalah is rendered "utterly consume" (Neh 9:31); analisko, "to use up," occurs in Lk 9:54; Gal 5:15; 2 Thess 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" (Ezek 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" (2 Thess 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.

W. L. Walker