יָגוֹן
ya.gon
sorrow
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# Yagon (יָגוֹן): Biblical Sorrow The Hebrew word *yagon* designates sorrow as a substantive emotional and spiritual state rather than a momentary feeling. Its fourteen occurrences in the biblical text indicate it was a significant term for expressing deep distress. The translation as "sorrow" captures an internal condition of grief or anguish—a sustained emotional state distinct from temporary sadness or disappointment. The relative rarity of this term (fourteen uses across the entire Hebrew Bible) suggests it was reserved for conveying serious emotional or spiritual distress rather than casual unhappiness. It appears in contexts where biblical writers needed a specific word for the kind of profound internal suffering that characterizes significant life circumstances. This measured usage indicates *yagon* held considerable weight in Hebrew emotional vocabulary and was employed when describing meaningful sorrow worthy of named expression. Without access to the specific biblical passages where *yagon* appears, we cannot determine whether it describes personal grief, communal suffering, or spiritual anguish exclusively, or how its usage may have evolved across different biblical periods. However, its establishment as a discrete lexical item with dedicated occurrences demonstrates that ancient Hebrew speakers recognized sorrow as a distinct emotional reality worth naming and discussing in their sacred literature.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
14 total occurrences across the text
as the days in which the Jews had rest from their enemies, and the month which was turned to them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending presents of food to one another, and gifts to the needy.
Psalms 13:2How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?
Psalms 31:10For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.
Psalms 107:39Again, they are diminished and bowed down through oppression, trouble, and sorrow.
Psalms 116:3The cords of death surrounded me, the pains of Sheol got a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow.
Isaiah 35:10Then Yahweh’s ransomed ones will return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
Isaiah 51:11Those ransomed by Yahweh will return, and come with singing to Zion. Everlasting joy shall be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Jeremiah 8:18Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me.
Jeremiah 20:18Why did I come out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?
Jeremiah 31:13Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance; the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
Jeremiah 45:3‘You said, “Woe is me now! For Yahweh has added sorrow to my pain! I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.” ’
Ezekiel 23:33You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of your sister Samaria.
Genesis 42:38He said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left. If harm happens to him along the way in which you go, then you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”
Genesis 44:31it will happen, when he sees that the boy is no more, that he will die. Your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to Sheol.