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# אוֹי

Biblical Hebrew · Strong's H188

**woe!** — used 24 times in the Hebrew Bible. Below: its meanings with their sources, MACULA's glosses, and 2 verses word for word and in JPS 1917.

## Meaning

### OpenScriptures lexical index

woe! [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/tanakh/1488/188/#m1)

### Brown–Driver–Briggs 1906

אוֹי: interj. woe! [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/tanakh/1488/188/#m2)

**The whole BDB entry:** interj. (onomatop.; cf. ܐܘܽܝ, ܘܳܝ) woe! an impassioned expression of grief and despair: usually with dative אוֹי לִי Is 6:5 woe to me! for I am undone, so 24:16; Je 10:19; 15:10; אוֹי לָנוּ woe to us! 1 S 4:7, 8; Je 4:13; 6:4; אוֹי־נָא לִי Je 4:31; 45:3; אוֹי־נָא לָנוּ La 5:16. With the 2nd or 3rd ps. often implying a denunciation; אוֹי־לְךָ מוֹאָב Nu 21:29 (= Je 48:46) Je 13:27; Ez 16:23 repeated אוֹי אוֹי לָךְ; Is. 3:9 אוֹי לְנַפְשָׁם v 11 Ho 7:13 (‖ שֹׁד לָהֶם) 9:12. With a voc. (or implicit accus.) Ez 24:6, 9 אוֹי עִיר הַדָּמִים; absol. Nu 24:23. Used as a subst. Pr 23:29 לִמִי אוֹי (‖ לְמִי אֲבוֹי).

Why these entries: BDB: headword, part of speech not compared, 23 of its verses cited, 1 words shared with the glosses, lists its Strong's number (2 candidates); OSHB: headword, part of speech not compared, 1 words shared with the BDB entry, 1 with the glosses (2 candidates)

## Glosses

MACULA's English glosses of the word in the text, with how often each is used: woe! (23); woe (1).

## In the verses

[Lamentations 5:16](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/LAM.5.16/) · [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/LAM.5.16/#tree)

נָֽפְלָה֙ עֲטֶ֣רֶת רֹאשֵׁ֔נוּ אֽוֹי־נָ֥א לָ֖נוּ כִּ֥י חָטָֽאנוּ׃

*Word for word:* it.has.fallen the.crown our.head our woe! please to us (dm) we.have.sinned

*JPS 1917:* The crown is fallen from our head; woe unto us! for we have sinned.

[Isaiah 3:11](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/ISA.3.11/) · [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/ISA.3.11/#tree)

א֖וֹי לְרָשָׁ֣ע רָ֑ע כִּֽי־גְמ֥וּל יָדָ֖יו יֵעָ֥שֶׂה לּֽוֹ׃

*Word for word:* woe! to.\[the\] wicked it.will.be.bad (dm) the.dealing his.hands his it.will.be.done to him

*JPS 1917:* Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him; for the work of his hands shall be done to him.

## On Mova

- [This word in the Tanakh dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/tanakh/w/188.html) on Mova free.
- [Trees and pragmatics of its meanings](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/tanakh/1488/188/): every English meaning parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.

Sources. The words, their counts, glosses and the word-for-word renderings: MACULA Hebrew (the Westminster Leningrad Codex; Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0). Meanings: the OpenScriptures lexical index (CC BY 4.0), Brown–Driver–Briggs 1906 and Jastrow 1903 (public domain, via Sefaria); Targum Onkelos from Sefaria (public domain). Translation: JPS 1917 (public domain, from eBible.org).