Abject (s)
Introduction:
The word abjects is only found in one place in the word of God and its basic meaning has to do with those who have lower than basic human standards of life and decency, rogues of the baser sort, lowlifes, malcontents etc.
It is also used to indicate the degree of poverty one is in. You may hear something along these lines, “they’re are living in abject poverty” The Cambridge online Dictionary gives this alternate meaning – “the state of being extremely unhappy, poor, unsuccessful, etc.”
It’s not likely to be found in many of the modern translations. It has been replaced with words like ruffians, smiters and attackers. Anyway an interesting word to study.
Etymology
The Hebrew word is NEKEH meaning a smiter, traducer
The word comes from the Latin “abjectus,” the past participle of the Latin verb abicere, meaning “to cast off.” So basically rejects or those rejected, signifying a low state, below normal standards of human decency and so on.
Synonyms
1) Base
2) Contemptible
3) Degraded
4) Hangdog (what a word, means to be shamefaced you know the look a dog gives when guilty well that’s a hangdog)
5) Deplorable
6) Sordid
7) Ignoble
Scriptural Reference (s)
Psalm 35:15-16 “But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not: With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.”
Spurgeon couldn’t have said it better,
A. “Those who deserved horsewhipping, fellows the soles of whose feet were needing the bastinado, came together to plot, and held hole and corner meetings. Like curs around a sick lion, the mean wretches taunted and insulted one whose name had been their terror.”
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