'Boy' in the Bible

Lamech said to his wives:Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;wives of Lamech, pay attention to my words.For I killed a man for wounding me,a young man for striking me.

But God said to Abraham, “Do not be concerned about the boy and your slave. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, because your offspring will be traced through Isaac.

Early in the morning Abraham got up, took bread and a waterskin, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her and the boy away. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beer-sheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.

Then she went and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I can’t bear to watch the boy die!” So as she sat nearby, she wept loudly.

God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What’s wrong, Hagar? Don’t be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy from the place where he is.

Get up, help the boy up, and support him, for I will make him a great nation.”

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the waterskin and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy, and he grew; he settled in the wilderness and became an archer.

Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you.”

Then He said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from Me.”

This is the history of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. Joseph brought an evil report of them to their father.

He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone! What am I going to do?”

As it was, he withdrew his hand, and then his brother was born. Amazed, the midwife cried out loud, "What's this? A breach birth?" So that boy was named Perez.

But Reuben replied: “Didn’t I tell you not to harm the boy? But you wouldn’t listen. Now we must account for his blood!”

Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me. We will be on our way so that we may live and not die—neither we, nor you, nor our children.

We said to my lord, 'We have an aged father, and there is a young boy who was born when our father was old. The boy's brother is dead. He is the only one of his mother's sons left, and his father loves him.'

But we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father. If he were to leave, his father would die.’

“So if I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us—his life is wrapped up with the boy’s life—

when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Then your servants will have brought the gray hairs of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow.

Your servant became accountable to my father for the boy, saying, ‘If I do not return him to you, I will always bear the guilt for sinning against you, my father.’

Now please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave, in place of the boy. Let him go back with his brothers.

For how can I go back to my father without the boy? I could not bear to see the grief that would overwhelm my father.”