Hebrew word · H6125

עָקָה

'akat

pressure

Pressure, oppression, distress, a squeezed or hemmed-in condition. The word appears only in this verse.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

oppression, pressure

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 Psalm 55:3

Range of meaning

Pressure, oppression, distress, a squeezed or hemmed-in condition. The word appears only in this verse. Its meaning comes from related words: Aramaic ʿāqā / ʿāqtā, "distress, trouble," and Hebrew words from the root ʿwq, "to press, to totter under pressure" (Amos 2:13 uses this root of a cart pressing down under its load).

Against the English

KJV, WEB, YLT and ESV have "oppression" and BSB has "pressure." Both are fair. "Oppression" can make modern readers think of a system, political or economic. The Hebrew is more personal and physical: the felt squeeze one hostile person puts on another.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Septuagint (LXX) has θλῖψις ("pressure, affliction") and the Latin Vulgate has tribulatio. Both are words for being pressed or crushed, which supports the sense "pressure/distress." Aramaic in the Targums and later Jewish texts commonly uses ʿāqtā for distress.

Where it appears

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 55:3 עָקַ֣ת [the] pressure of

    at the voice of the enemy, at the pressure of the wicked. For they bring down disaster upon me and resent me in their anger.

    Here: This word occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. It is related to an Aramaic word for "distress, tightness." The picture is of being squeezed or hemmed in by the wicked.

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