'Burden' in the Bible

They shall judge the people at all times; have them bring every major dispute to you, but let them judge every minor dispute themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you.

But deal with them in this way, so that they may live and not die when they approach the most holy things: Aaron and his sons shall go in and assign each of them to his [specific] work and to his load [to be carried on the march].

from thirty years and upward even to fifty years old, everyone who could enter to do the work of service and the work of carrying in the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle);

So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have You been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have placed the burden of all these people on me?

I am not able to carry all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me.

Then I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take away some of the Spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you will not have to bear it all alone.

How can I alone bear the weight and pressure and burden of you and your strife (contention) and complaining?

When he cut the hair of his head (for at the end of each year he cut it, because its weight was heavy on him) he weighed the hair of his head at 200 shekels by the king’s weight.

David said to him, “If you go on with me, you will be a burden to me.

I am this day eighty years old. Can I [be useful to advise you to] discern between good and bad? Can your servant taste what I eat or drink? Can I still hear the voices of singing men and women? Why then should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king?

Solomon had 70,000 burden bearers (transporters) and 80,000 stonemasons in the hill country [of Judah],

For thus says the Lord, ‘You will not see wind or rain, yet that valley will be filled with water, so you and your cattle and your other animals may drink.

Naaman said, “If not, then please, let your servant be given a load of earth for a team of mules; for [from this day on] your servant will no longer offer a burnt offering nor a sacrifice to other gods, but only to the Lord, [the God of Israel].

He assigned 70,000 of them to carry loads and 80,000 to quarry stone in the mountain, and 3,600 as overseers to make the people work.

They were also in charge of the burden bearers [who carried heavy loads], and supervised all the workmen in any kind of service; and some of the Levites were scribes and officials and gatekeepers.

To the Levites who taught all Israel and were holy to the Lord he said, “Put the holy ark in the house (temple) which Solomon the son of David king of Israel built; it shall not be a burden [carried] on your shoulders any longer. Now serve the Lord your God and His people Israel.

Then [the leaders of] Judah said,“The strength of the burden bearers is failing,And there is much rubble;We ourselves are unableTo rebuild the wall.”

Now when it began to get dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath [began], I commanded that the doors be shut and not be opened until after the Sabbath. Then I stationed some of my servants at the gates so that no load [of merchandise] would enter [Jerusalem] on the Sabbath day.

“If I have sinned, what [harm] have I done to You,O Watcher of mankind?Why have You set me as a target for You,So that I am a burden to myself?

For my iniquities have gone over my head [like the waves of a flood];As a heavy burden they weigh too much for me.

O my God, my soul is in despair within me [the burden more than I can bear];Therefore I will [fervently] remember You from the land of the JordanAnd the peaks of [Mount] Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

Cast your burden on the Lord [release it] and He will sustain and uphold you;He will never allow the righteous to be shaken (slip, fall, fail).

You brought us into the net;You laid a heavy burden [of servitude] on us.

“I removed the burden from his shoulder;His hands were freed from the basket.

I have not learned [skillful and godly] wisdom,Nor do I have knowledge of the Holy One [who is the source of wisdom].

Furthermore, they are afraid of a high place and of dangers on the road; the almond tree (hair) blossoms [white], and the grasshopper (a little thing) is a burden, and the caperberry (desire, appetite) fails. For man goes to his eternal home and the mourners go about the streets and market places.

“I hate [the hypocrisy of] your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts.They have become a burden to Me;I am weary of bearing them.

For You will break the yoke of Israel’s burden and the staff (goad) on their shoulders,The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian.

So it will be in that day, that the burden of the Assyrian will be removed from your shoulders and his yoke from your neck. The yoke will be broken because of the fat.

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw [in a prophetic vision]:

to break the Assyrian in My land, and on My mountains I will trample him underfoot. Then the Assyrian’s yoke will be removed from them (the people of Judah) and his burden removed from their shoulder.

In the year that King Ahaz [of Judah] died this [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) came:

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning Moab:Because in a night Ar of Moab is devastated and ruined;Because in a night Kir of Moab is devastated and ruined.

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning Damascus [capital of Aram (Syria), and Israel’s defense against Assyria].“Listen carefully, Damascus will cease to be a cityAnd will become a fallen ruin.

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning Egypt:Listen carefully, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;The idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence,And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning the Desert of the Sea (the seasonally flooded plains just south of Babylon):As windstorms in the Negev (the South) sweep through,So it (God’s judgment) comes from the desert, from [the hostile armies of] a terrifying land.

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning Dumah (Edom):Someone keeps calling to me from Seir (Edom),“Watchman, what is left of the night [of Assyrian oppression]?Watchman, what is left of the night? [How long until morning?]”

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning Arabia:In the thickets of Arabia you must spend the night,Caravans of Dedanites.

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning the Valley of Vision:What is the matter with you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops,

In that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “the peg (Eliakim) that was driven into the firm place will give way; it will even break off and fall, and the burden hanging on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.”

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning Tyre:Wail, O ships of Tarshish,For Tyre is destroyed, without house, without harbor;It is reported to them from the land of Cyprus (Kittim).

A [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning the beasts of the Negev (the South):Through a land of trouble and anguish,From where come lioness and lion, viper and [fiery] flying serpent,They carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeysAnd their treasures on the humps of camels,To a people (Egyptians) who cannot benefit them.

Bel has bowed down, Nebo stoops over;Their idols are on the beasts [of burden] and on the cattle.Your burdens [of idols] are loaded [on them],Burdens on the weary animals.

Thus says the Lord, “Pay attention for your own good, [and for the sake of your future] do not carry any load on the Sabbath day or bring anything in through the gates of Jerusalem.

You shall not carry a load out of your houses on the Sabbath day nor do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy [by setting it apart as a day of worship], as I commanded your fathers.

But it will come about, if you listen diligently to Me,” says the Lord, “to bring no load in through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy by doing no work on it,

But if you will not listen to Me and keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load as you come in the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in her gates that cannot be extinguished, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.”’”

“Now when this people or a prophet or a priest asks you [in jest], ‘What is the oracle of the Lord [the burden to be lifted up and carried]?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘What oracle [besides the one that declares you people to be the burden]!’ The Lord says, ‘I will unburden Myself and I will abandon you.’

And as for the prophet, the priest, or [any of] the people, whoever says, ‘The oracle of the Lord,’ [as if he knows God’s will], I will punish that man and his household.

For you will no longer remember the oracle of the Lord, because every man’s own word will become the oracle, [for as they mockingly call all prophecies oracles, whether good or bad, so will it prove to be to them; God will take them at their own word]; and you have perverted the words [not of a lifeless idol, but] of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God.

For if you say, ‘The oracle of the Lord!’ surely thus says the Lord, ‘Because you said this word, “The oracle of the Lord!” when I have also sent to you, saying, “You shall not say, ‘The oracle of the Lord!’”’

‘O Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, because I know that a spirit of the holy gods is in you and no mystery baffles or troubles you, tell me the visions of my dream which I have seen, along with its interpretation.

Yes, even though [with presents] they hire allies among the nations,Now I will gather them up;And [in a little while] they will begin to grow weak and diminishBecause of the burden imposed by the king of princes [the king of Assyria].

The oracle (a burdensome message—a pronouncement from God) concerning Nineveh [the capital city of Assyria]. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh [which he saw in spirit and prophesied].

The oracle (a burdensome message—a pronouncement from God) which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

“I will gather those [Israelites in captivity] who grieve about the appointed feasts—They came from you, [O Zion];On whom the reproach [of exile] is a burden.

The oracle (a burdensome message) of the word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrach [in Syria], with Damascus as its resting place (for the eyes of men, especially of all the tribes of Israel, are toward the Lord),

The oracle (a burdensome message) of the word of the Lord concerning Israel.Thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens and lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him:

And in that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will come and be gathered against it.

The oracle (burdensome message) of the word of the Lord to Israel through [My messenger] Malachi.

For My yoke is easy [to bear] and My burden is light.”

saying, ‘These men who came last worked [only] one hour, and yet you have made them equal [in wages] to us who have carried [most of] the burden and [worked in] the scorching heat of the day.’

“Tell the daughter of Zion (the people of Jerusalem),‘Behold, your King is coming to you,Gentle and mounted on a donkey,Even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to place on you any greater burden than these essentials:

“Let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see,And make their backs bend [under their burden] forever.”

For while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened [often weighed down, oppressed], not that we want to be unclothed [separated by death from the body], but to be clothed, so that what is mortal [the body] will be swallowed up by life [after the resurrection].

And when I was with you and ran short [financially], I did not burden any of you; for what I needed was fully supplied by the brothers (Silas and Timothy) who came from Macedonia (the church at Philippi). So I kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so.

For in what respect were you treated as inferior to the rest of the churches, except [for the fact] that I did not burden you [with my financial support]? Forgive me [for doing you] this injustice!

Now for the third time I am ready to visit you. I will not burden you [financially], because I do not want what is yours [not your money or your possessions], but you. For children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.

But be that as it may, I did not burden you [with my support]. But [some say that] I was sly and took you by trickery.

For you remember, believers, our labor and hardship. We worked night and day [practicing our trade] in order not to be a [financial] burden to any of you while we proclaimed the gospel of God to you.

nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we worked night and day [to pay our own way] so that we would not be a financial burden on any of you [for our support];

For among them are those who worm their way into homes and captivate morally weak and spiritually-dwarfed women weighed down by [the burden of their] sins, easily swayed by various impulses,

so Christ, having been offered once and once for all to bear [as a burden] the sins of many, will appear a second time [when he returns to earth], not to deal with sin, but to bring salvation to those who are eagerly and confidently waiting for Him.

but he was rebuked for his own transgression: a mute donkey spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not explored and known the depths of Satan, as they call them—I place no other burden on you,