Hebrew word · H337
אִי
'i-
woe!
An exclamation of distress or doom: 'woe!', 'alas!' It is a short form related to the more common אוֹי (oy) and הוֹי (hoy). It voices grief and warns of disaster at the same time.
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
alas!, woe!
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 10:16
- Range of meaning
An exclamation of distress or doom: 'woe!', 'alas!' It is a short form related to the more common אוֹי (oy) and הוֹי (hoy). It voices grief and warns of disaster at the same time.
- Against the English
'Woe to you' (KJV, BSB, WEB) is accurate but sounds old-fashioned. Some modern versions use 'Alas for you' or 'What sorrow for'. Those catch the lament but lose some of the warning.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In the Hebrew Bible this exact form occurs clearly only here. Ecclesiastes 4:10 has וְאִילוֹ ('and woe to him who is alone'), which is usually read as the same word plus 'to him'. Both are probably late Hebrew forms, close to Aramaic and later rabbinic Hebrew usage. The Septuagint renders it οὐαί (ouai), the same 'woe' the prophets use.
Where it appears
Ecclesiastes · 2
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Ecclesiastes 4:10 וְאִ֣יל֗וֹ and woe! to <the> him
For if one falls down, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to help him up!
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Ecclesiastes 10:16 אִֽי־ woe!
Woe to you, O land whose king is a youth, and whose princes feast in the morning.
Here: A rare, short form of the cry of lament and doom (the usual forms are hoy and oy). It is an exclamation, not a curse: the speaker groans over a land in a bad state, and it sets up the matching 'Happy are you, land' in the next verse.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.