אָנַח
a.nach
to sigh
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# The Hebrew Word for Sighing: אָנַח (anach) The Hebrew verb אָנַח (anach) denotes the act of sighing—a physical expression of emotion that appears relatively infrequently in the biblical text, occurring just thirteen times. This limited occurrence suggests that while sighing was recognized as a meaningful human response, it was not a dominant focus of biblical vocabulary. The word captures a specific physiological and emotional moment: the audible exhalation that accompanies feelings of distress, weariness, or profound emotion. As a term rooted in bodily experience, anach belongs to the biblical vocabulary of emotional expression alongside words for weeping, groaning, and crying out. Its thirteen occurrences distribute across various contexts—likely ranging from moments of personal anguish to responses to larger communal suffering. The word's directness in naming this particular form of emotional release reflects the biblical interest in capturing the full range of human responses to difficulty, loss, and spiritual struggle. Rather than offering abstract theological language, anach grounds emotional experience in the tangible reality of the human body and breath.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
13 total occurrences across the text
When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people groan.
Isaiah 24:7The new wine mourns. The vine languishes. All the merry-hearted sigh.
Jeremiah 22:23Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!
Lamentations 1:4The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
Lamentations 1:8Jerusalem has grievously sinned. Therefore she has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness. Yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
Lamentations 1:11All her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become despised.”
Lamentations 1:21“They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me.
Ezekiel 9:4Yahweh said to him, “Go through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”
Ezekiel 21:6“Therefore sigh, you son of man. You shall sigh before their eyes with a broken heart and with bitterness.
Ezekiel 21:6“Therefore sigh, you son of man. You shall sigh before their eyes with a broken heart and with bitterness.
Ezekiel 21:7It shall be, when they ask you, ‘Why do you sigh?’ that you shall say, ‘Because of the news, for it comes! Every heart will melt, all hands will be feeble, every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water. Behold, it comes, and it shall be done, says the Lord Yahweh.’ ”
Joel 1:18How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
Exodus 2:23In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.