Cessation , i.e. an end (especially of the earth); often used adverb, no further ; also the ankle (in the dual), as being the extremity of the leg or foot
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through theConnect page. Screenshots are helpful.
The Hebrew noun epes has several contextual senses. It can mark an end or cessation, express absence with ideas such as none or no further, refer to the extremities or ends of the earth, and in Ezekiel 47 identify the ankles reached by measured water.
Reader summary
Full entry for אֶפֶס (H657) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun epes has several contextual senses. It can mark an end or cessation, express absence with ideas such as none or no further, refer to the extremities or ends of the earth, and in Ezekiel 47 identify the ankles reached by measured water.
The BSB source-word alignment has 44 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the ends (11), . . . (3), and [there is] none (2), and there is none (2), Nevertheless (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Numbers 13:28. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (14), Psalms (6), Deuteronomy (3), Numbers (3).
The Hebrew noun epes has several contextual senses. It can mark an end or cessation, express absence with ideas such as none or no further, refer to the extremities or ends of the earth, and in Ezekiel 47 identify the ankles reached by measured water. These are related lexical possibilities, not a single symbolic formula. Proverbs uses cessation language when gossip stops and conflict dies down.
Job speaks from anguish about days ending without hope, which records a sufferer's perception rather than permitting a community to declare any suffering person hopeless. Deuteronomy portrays God moved with compassion when strength is gone and no one remains. Isaiah calls the ends of the earth to turn to the only God for salvation; the geographic idiom addresses the widest horizon and does not teach a scientific map.
Ezekiel's ankle-deep water reports a measured depth and should not become a secret hierarchy of spiritual worth. Responsible teaching follows syntax and genre, honors grief, responds seriously to self-harm risk, and refuses to manufacture doctrine from sound or root association alone.
Epes can denote cessation, absence, extremity, broad geographic reach, or an ankle. Wisdom, lament, covenant song, prophetic proclamation, and vision employ these senses differently, so the sentence and literary setting must govern interpretation.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.
Job describes his swiftly passing days as coming to an end without hope from within severe affliction.
Without wood, a fire goes out; without gossip, a conflict ceases.
The proverb compares conflict ceasing without gossip to a fire going out when its wood is gone.
For the Lord will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, slave or free.
The song says the Lord will judge His people and have compassion when strength is gone and no one remains.
Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
The Lord calls all the ends of the earth to turn and be saved because He alone is God.
As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and led me through ankle-deep water.
In Ezekiel's measured river vision, the first thousand cubits bring the prophet through ankle-deep water.
For the Lord saw that the affliction of the Israelites, both slave and free, was very bitter. There was no one to help Israel,
The Lord sees Israel's bitter affliction when no one remains to help either bond or free.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Extremity and cessation unified: boundary markers (earth's edge, ankle) and negation (no further, nothing).
Extremity and cessation unified: boundary markers (earth's edge, ankle) and negation (no further, nothing).
cessation, i.e. an end (especially of the earth); often used adverb, no further; also the ankle (in the dual), as being the extremity of the leg or foot BDB: ceasing Usage: ankle, but (only), end, howbeit, less than nothing, nevertheless (where), no, none (beside), not (any, -withstanding), thing of nought, save(-ing), there, uttermost part, want, without (cause).
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
אֶפֶס is built from these roots:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Epes demonstrates why lexical range must remain under contextual control. Job 7 uses ending language inside a sufferer's anguished speech. The verse validates the severity of his experience, but the book does not authorize observers to pronounce his life hopeless or to answer despair with a detached word study. Proverbs 26 uses cessation practically: remove the fuel of gossip and a quarrel can cease.
Deuteronomy 32 and 2 Kings 14 describe strength or helpers as gone, yet both settings move toward the Lord's compassion, preventing absence language from becoming abandonment theology. Isaiah 45 addresses the ends of the earth in a universal summons to turn to the one saving God. The idiom extends the audience across the inhabited world; it neither maps the planet's physical shape nor licenses coercion against people of another faith.
Ezekiel 47 supplies a distinct anatomical sense when measured water reaches the ankles. The prophet's sequence belongs to a symbolic vision, but the ankle itself is a depth marker, not a score of Christian maturity. Faithful application therefore distinguishes senses, accompanies distressed people, interrupts gossip, confesses God's unique saving authority without human force, and avoids turning ordinary measurements into speculative ranks.
Isa.45.22
Epes is a Hebrew masculine noun whose range includes cessation, end, absence, extremity, and ankle. Construct relationships, negating expressions, parallelism, prepositions, and the noun being measured distinguish the appropriate sense in context.
Jesus invites people from every direction into God's kingdom, meets exhausted and grieving people with compassion, and identifies Himself as the way to the Father without commanding forced belief. The apostles likewise join exclusive confession to patient, noncoercive witness.