עוּק

From the study of Amos 2:13

Range of meaning

This verb occurs only here in the whole Hebrew Bible, twice in this one verse, so its meaning has to be worked out from related words and ancient translations. The main proposals are:

• 'Press, bear down, crush': from the related Hebrew nouns ʿāqâ 'pressure, oppression' (Ps 55:4 [55:3 Eng]) and mûʿāqâ 'heavy burden' (Ps 66:11), and from Aramaic ʿwq 'to press, distress'. This is the most widely held view.
• 'Hinder, slow down, make stick': from an Arabic root ʿāqa 'to hold back, impede'. The cart bogs down under its load, and Israel will be stopped in its tracks.
• 'Split open, cleave, groove': from Arabic and later Hebrew words for a hollow or furrow. Heavy wheels cut ruts into the ground. Some link this to the earthquake mentioned in Amos 1:1.
• 'Totter, sway': the gloss in some lexicons (BDB marks it with a question mark), sometimes tied to the similar root pûq 'to totter' (Isa 28:7; Jer 10:4).

Against the English

BSB, WEB and NIV say 'crush'. ESV and NRSV say 'press down'. KJV and older NASB make God the one who is burdened: 'I am pressed / weighted down under you'. NLT has Israel 'groan' like a creaking cart. NJPS has God 'slow' their movements. All of these are attempts to make sense of a single rare verb.

How it drifted

No drift of an English word as such. The disagreement comes from genuine uncertainty about a word that appears only once. KJV's passive 'I am pressed' is a grammatical choice: the Hebrew form is active and causative ('I am making ... / I press'), which is why most modern versions abandoned it.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Septuagint (Greek translation) reads kyliō 'I roll [under you], as a wagon full of straw rolls'. The Vulgate (Latin) reads stridebo 'I will creak/screech [beneath you], as a cart loaded with hay creaks'. The Aramaic Targum uses the same root ʿwq in its Aramaic sense 'to distress, oppress'. That the ancient translators came up with three different solutions confirms the word was already obscure in antiquity.