Bible Dictionary
CALAMITY
Calamity means serious adversity, misfortune, ruin, or distress. In the Old Testament it may describe suffering caused by folly, disease, poverty, persecution, war, wickedness, or divine judgment.
Definition
Calamity is serious adversity, misfortune, ruin, or distress. In the Old Testament it may include natural adversity, suffering caused by moral evil, and destructive circumstances of many kinds.
Biblical Usage
Biblical calamity includes folly, disease, poverty, bereavement, persecution, divine retribution, judgment, war, and general adversity. The term is chiefly an Old Testament expression and often concerns troubles resulting from wickedness or moral evil.
Historical Background
The underlying Hebrew terms express a burden under which one is crushed, a fall or ruin, and evil or adversity. One term translated “calamity” elsewhere is rendered “wickedness” in the Revised Version.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>ka-lam'-i-ti ('edh, "a load" or "burden" under which one is crushed, hence, "misfortune"; hayyah, hawwah, "fall," "ruin," the latter word used only in the plural; ra`, "evil in essence" hence, "adversity," once only, Ps 141:5, the Revised Version (British and American) "wickedness"): Purely an Old Testament term, signifying adversities--natural, but more often those that result from wickedness or moral evil. Various kinds:</p><p>(1) folly, "a foolish son" (Pr 19:13);</p><p>(2) disease, poverty, bereavement, as in Job's experience (Job 6:2; 30:13);</p><p>(3) persecution (2Sa 22:19; Ps 18:18);</p><p>(4) Divine retribution and judgment (De 32:35); compare ruin of the wicked (Pr 1:26, also Pr 1:27 the Revised Version (British and American) for "destruction" the King James Version);</p><p>(5) the devastation of war (Jer 46:21);</p><p>(6) adversities of any kind (Pr 27:10).</p><p>Dwight M. Pratt</p>