Reference: Hard
Hastings
Besides other meanings which are still in use, 'hard' sometimes means close: Jg 9:52 'And Abimelech
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Sarai said to Abram, "This wrong is your fault. I gave my handmaid into your bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. The LORD judge between me and you."
and it happened, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the LORD killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of animal. Therefore I sacrifice to the LORD all that opens the womb, being males; but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.'
Abimelech came to the tower, and fought against it, and drew near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire.
"My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me.
My soul stays close to you. Your right hand holds me up.
Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I say to you, a rich man will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven with difficulty.
And suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he cries out, and it convulses him so that he foams, and it hardly departs from him, bruising him severely.
He departed there, and went into the house of a certain man named Titius Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.
With difficulty sailing along it we came to a certain place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea.
You therefore must share in hardship, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
by which he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust.