Affection

fel'-ing: The following varieties of meaning are to be noted:

(1) "To touch," "handle," "grope after" (mashash (Gen 27:12; Gen 27:22; Exod 10:21; mush, Gen 27:21; Judg 16:26; pselaphao, Acts 17:27).

(2) "To know," "understand," "experience" (bin, Ps 58:9; yadha`, Prov 23:35; ginosko, Mark 5:29).

(3) "To have a fellow feeling," "to place one's self into the position of another," especially while suffering, "to have compassion" (sumpathein, Heb 4:15; compare 10:34; which is to be carefully distinguished from the similar verb sumpaschein, which means "to share in the same suffering with another," Rom 8:17; 1 Cor 12:26). See Delitzsch, Commentary on Heb 4:15.

(4) "To feel harm," "pain," "grief," "to be sensitive" (paschein, with the roots path- and penth-, Acts 28:5); or with the negation: "to have ceased to feel," "to be apathetic," "past feeling," "callous," apelgekos, perfect participle of apalgeo (Eph 4:19) which describes the condition of the sinner, who by hardening his heart against moral influences is left without a sense of his high vocation, without an idea of the awfulness of sin, without reverence to God, without an appreciation of the salvation offered by Him, and without fear of His judgment.

H. L. E. Luering