oy · woe, alas

What it means

oy (אוֹי) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “woe, alas”.

Woe! A cry of lament or a warning of disaster.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. A cry of grief or warning.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• Woe ×23
• Alas ×1

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Numbers×2
• 1 Samuel×2
• Proverbs×1
• Isaiah×4
• Jeremiah×8
• Lamentations×1
• Ezekiel×4
• Hosea×2

• Numbers 21:29

  Woe to you, Moab! You have perished, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to the king of the Amorites, Sihon.

• Numbers 24:23

  And he took up his poem and said, “Alas, who shall live when El does this?

• 1 Samuel 4:7

  And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, “Elohim has come into the camp!” And they said, “Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before.

• 1 Samuel 4:8

  Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck Egypt with every kind of blow in the wilderness.

• Proverbs 23:29

  Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has quarrels? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?

• Isaiah 3:9

  The look of their faces testifies against them, and their sin, like Sodom, they proclaim; they do not hide it. Woe to their soul, for they have brought evil on themselves!

• Isaiah 3:11

  Woe to the wicked! It will be ill, for the recompense of his hands will be done to him.

• Isaiah 6:5

  And I said, “Woe to me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and in the midst of a people of unclean lips I dwell; for the King, YHWH Tsevaot, my eyes have seen.”

• Isaiah 24:16

  From the end of the earth we have heard songs: “Ornament for the righteous!” But I said, “Leanness to me, leanness to me! Woe to me! Traitors betray, and with betrayal traitors betray.”

• Jeremiah 4:13

  Look, like clouds he comes up, and like the whirlwind are his chariots; swifter than eagles are his horses. Woe to us, for we are devastated!

• Jeremiah 4:31

  For I heard a voice as of a woman in labor, anguish as of one bearing her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath, spreading out her palms: “Woe to me now, for my soul faints before murderers!”

• Jeremiah 6:4

  “Consecrate war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon.” “Woe to us, for the day is declining, for the shadows of evening are lengthening.”

• Jeremiah 10:19

  Woe to me for my breaking! My wound is incurable. But I said: “Surely this is a sickness, and I must bear it.”

• Jeremiah 13:27

  Your adulteries and your neighings, the infamy of your prostitution on the hills in the field, I have seen your detestable things. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be clean; after how long still?

• Jeremiah 15:10

  Woe to me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of dispute and a man of contention to all the land! I have not lent, nor have they lent to me, yet all of them curse me.

• Jeremiah 45:3

  You said, ‘Woe now to me, for YHWH has added affliction to my pain; I am weary with my sighing, and rest I have not found.’

• Jeremiah 48:46

  Woe to you, Moab! The people of Chemosh has perished, for your sons have been taken into captivity, and your daughters into captivity.

• Lamentations 5:16

  The crown of our head has fallen; woe now to us, for we have sinned!

• Ezekiel 16:23

  And it came to pass after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! declares Adonai YHWH)

• Ezekiel 24:6

  Therefore thus says Adonai YHWH: Woe to the city of bloodshed, a pot whose rust is in it, and its rust has not gone out of it! By its pieces, by its pieces take it out; no lot has fallen on it.

• Ezekiel 24:9

  Therefore thus says Adonai YHWH: Woe to the city of bloodshed! I too will make great the pyre.

• Hosea 7:13

  Woe to them, for they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, for they have transgressed against me! And I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me.

• Hosea 9:12

  Even if they bring up their children, I will bereave them before they are men; for indeed, woe to them when I turn away from them!

And 1 more times.