Hebrew word · H3023

יָגֵעַ

yagea'

weary

An adjective from the root יגע, 'to toil, labor until exhausted, grow weary.' The adjective occurs only three times: Deut 25:18 (Israel 'faint and weary' when Amalek attacked), 2 Sam 17:2 (David 'weary and weak-handed'), and here. In the other two it describes someone worn out by exertion.

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

weary, wearisome

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Ecclesiastes 1:8

Range of meaning

An adjective from the root יגע, 'to toil, labor until exhausted, grow weary.' The adjective occurs only three times: Deut 25:18 (Israel 'faint and weary' when Amalek attacked), 2 Sam 17:2 (David 'weary and weak-handed'), and here. In the other two it describes someone worn out by exertion. The related noun and verb mean the hard, draining labor of toil (e.g., Eccl 10:15, 'the toil of fools wearies them').

Against the English

KJV 'full of labour' and ESV/WEB 'full of weariness' keep the idea of toil. BSB/NIV/NASB 'wearisome' and YLT 'wearying' make the things the cause of tiredness in someone else. In modern English 'wearisome' easily slides toward 'tedious, boring.'

How it drifted

'Wearisome' has come to mean tiresome or dull in everyday English. The Hebrew is about physical exhaustion from labor, not boredom.

Used elsewhere in the period

Deut 25:18; 2 Sam 17:2. The verb appears in Isa 40:28–31 ('they shall run and not be weary') and Eccl 10:15. The epilogue's noun yegiʿah ('weariness,' 12:12) uses the same root, framing the book with 'words' and 'weariness.' The Septuagint renders it ἔγκοποι, 'toilsome, laborious.'

Where it appears

Deuteronomy · 1

  1. Deuteronomy 25:18 וְיָגֵ֑עַ and weary

    how they met you on your journey when you were tired and weary, and they attacked all your stragglers; they had no fear of God.

2 Samuel · 1

  1. 2 Samuel 17:2 יָגֵ֙עַ֙ [will be] weary

    I will attack him while he is weak and weary; I will throw him into a panic, and all the people with him will flee; I will strike down only the king

Ecclesiastes · 1

  1. Ecclesiastes 1:8 יְגֵעִ֔ים [are] wearisome

    All things are wearisome, more than one can describe; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear content with hearing.

    Here: Plural adjective meaning 'worn out, toiled to exhaustion.' Coming right after the panting sun, the circling wind and the endlessly flowing rivers (vv. 5–7), it pictures everything as laboring without rest. It may also mean that the things wear out anyone who tries to grasp them.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.