Hebrew words for to like, love, dislike, and hate

[TonyChanYT]

There is no single word in OT Hebrew that correspondent exactly to the English verb to like.

1 Samuel 18:22 New International Version

Then Saul ordered his attendants: “Speak to David privately and say, ‘Look, the king likes you, and his attendants all love you; now become his son-in-law.’”

is pleased with you,
חָפֵ֤ץ (ḥā·p̄êṣ)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 2654: To incline to, to bend, to be pleased with, desire

Further, the Hebrew concept of hate does not correspondent exactly to the English concept either, Deuteronomy 22:13, English Standard Version

If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her

NIV:

If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her

H8130, sane, שָׂנֵא, to hate

H8130-hate is more ambiguous than the English hate, Genesis 29:

30 So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years.
31 When the LORD saw that Leah was hated [H8130], he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.

H8130-hate means to love less and carries some English word sense of dislike.

When I started to learn English, I found it strange that a woman loves her child and loves her cat with the same verb to love

See also HATE his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters?.

 

[Randy Kluth]

There is no single word in OT Hebrew that correspondent exactly to the English verb to like.

1 Samuel 18:22 New International Version


is pleased with you,
חָפֵ֤ץ (ḥā·p̄êṣ)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 2654: To incline to, to bend, to be pleased with, desire

Further, the Hebrew concept of hate does not correspondent exactly to the English concept either, Deuteronomy 22:13, English Standard Version


NIV:


H8130, sane, שָׂנֵא, to hate

H8130-hate is more ambiguous than the English hate, Genesis 29:


H8130-hate means to love less and carries some English word sense of dislike.

When I started to learn English, I found it strange that a woman loves her child and loves her cat with the same verb to love

See also HATE his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters?.

I love cats, but at some point we have to realize they're not humans!

I think the original languages can help us with respect to specificity. What kind of an emotion, and how much, etc. But my own personal approach is to see words as flexibly applied. It is context that determines what a word means, and not just its dictionary meaning.