req describes what is empty or lacking substance, whether a vessel, a person, a pursuit, or a stated word.

The adjective most often marks people, pursuits, or statements as lacking substance or value; it also describes a pit, vessels, jars, and a person shaken out as empty. The supplied verses show the same broad contrast between what is unfilled and what proves insubstantial.

1. Lacking substance or value · dominant

   With masculine plural forms, the term characterizes men who gather around Rehoboam or Jephthah in 2 Chronicles 13:7 and Judges 11:3, and men hired by Abimelech in Judges 9:4. It also qualifies things pursued rather than work on the land in Proverbs 12:11 and Proverbs 28:19; in Deuteronomy 32:47, the clause denies that the word is of this kind.

   2 Chronicles 13:7Judges 11:3Judges 9:4Proverbs 12:11Proverbs 28:19Deuteronomy 32:47
2. Empty or unfilled · common

   The singular masculine form describes the pit as having no water in Genesis 37:24, while plural masculine forms modify vessels and jars in 2 Kings 4:3 and Judges 7:16. In Nehemiah 5:13, the same form occurs in the declaration that a person who does not uphold the word may be shaken out and empty.

   Genesis 37:242 Kings 4:3Judges 7:16Nehemiah 5:13

In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB commonly uses “worthless” for people, things, and the word, while it uses “empty” for the pit, vessels, jars, and the shaken-out person. It also has “thin” in Genesis 41:27 and “worthless” for the soul in Isaiah 29:8; these are whole-verse translation renderings rather than definitions.