Strong's Hebrew · H188

H188 ʼôwy

אוֹי

o'-ee

alas, woe.

When ʼôwy is spoken over you, Doxa is where you record what was said, in the words it was said in, weigh it against Scripture with people you trust, and return to it in a year.

Definition

lamentation; also interjectionally Oh!

Derivation

probably from H183 (אָוָה) (in the sense of crying out after);

Appears 24 times in Scripture

Isaiah 3:9

The expression on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster upon themselves.

Isaiah 3:11

Woe to the wicked; disaster is upon them! For they will be repaid with what their hands have done.

1 Samuel 4:8

Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness.

Isaiah 24:16

From the ends of the earth we hear singing: “Glory to the Righteous One.” But I said, “I am wasting away! I am wasting away! Woe is me.” The treacherous betray; the treacherous deal in treachery.

Numbers 24:23

Once more Balaam lifted up an oracle, saying: “Ah, who can live unless God has ordained it?

Jeremiah 13:27

Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”

Numbers 21:29

Woe to you, O Moab! You are destroyed, O people of Chemosh! He gave up his sons as refugees, and his daughters into captivity to Sihon king of the Amorites.

Proverbs 23:29

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has needless wounds? Who has bloodshot eyes?

1 Samuel 4:7

the Philistines were afraid. “The gods have entered their camp!” they said. “Woe to us, for nothing like this has happened before.

Isaiah 6:5

Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts.”

When ʼôwy is spoken over you

Words like this one get spoken over people: in a prayer line, in a message from a friend, in a moment nobody planned. The lexicon gives you what ʼôwy means. What God is saying to you through it is yours to record and weigh.

Doxa is where you record what was said, in the words it was said in, weigh it against verses like Isaiah 3:9 with people you trust, and return to it in a year to see what came of it.

How weighing a word works

Lexicon: Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890, public domain), digital edition by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). Verse mappings: Berean Standard Bible interlinear tables (public domain).

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Strong's concordance data derived from the Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA) Hebrew and Greek lexicons. Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB) © 2016, 2020 by Bible Hub. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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