to sigh or groan: to let out a heavy, audible breath of grief, pain, or distress
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This verb is the sound a person makes when sorrow or hardship pushes the breath out of them. It is not a word for weeping or for shouting; it names the low, involuntary groan that grief forces into the open, the kind others can hear and recognize. It runs through the same emotional territory every time it appears, so the word carries a single settled meaning.
Across the Bible that groan rises from many kinds of trouble:
Israel groaning under the crushing labor of slavery in Egypt, a cry that reaches God
the priests, gates, and people of a ruined Jerusalem sighing over what has been lost
those who grieve over the wrongs done in their city, singled out and marked for it
even cattle groaning in a famished land when there is no pasture left
Because the word is always tied to real distress, it often marks the honest human response to disaster, and in a few places a prophet is told to groan on purpose, acting out the nation's coming grief so that onlookers feel the weight of it before it arrives.
names the heavy breath of people crushed by suffering, and can rise as a cry that reaches God, as when Israel groaned under slavery.Exo 2:23
Both
both are an audible sound forced out of a person by pain or hardship.Ezk 21:6
Only groan
English "groan" often suggests bodily effort or physical pain, a groan of exertion or a creaking sound, while this word is first of all the breath of grief and distress.
Names groaning as a physical toll that wears the sufferer out, drenching the bed and draining strength so that rest is gone.Psa 6:6Psa 102:5Jer 45:3
Is the sighing God promises to abolish for good, the mark of sorrow that will one day "flee away".Isa 35:10Isa 51:11
אָנַקa close partner word for groaning that stands right beside this one when the people grieve over their city's sins; it leans toward the cry of a wounded or dying person.
The drawn-out sigh of a whole community worn down by lasting hardship: a nation enslaved, a people crushed under corrupt rule, a ruined city looking for bread.Exo 2:23Pro 29:2Lam 1:11
Reaches even beyond people to the animals; the herds of cattle sigh together when the pasture fails and there is nothing left to eat.Jol 1:18
Both
Both name the audible sound of grief over what is happening; in one vision they stand side by side for the people who sigh and cry aloud over all the detestable things being done in the city.Ezk 9:4
names the wordless sound of grief itself, a sigh or groan wrung out by pain and sorrow rather than a message aimed at anyone who could helpEzk 21:6Lam 1:4
voices mourning over ruin and desolation, the grief of those surveying loss, and can even be said of animals groaning in a stricken landIsa 24:7Jol 1:18
Both
both give voice to distress under oppression, the outcry of a suffering peopleExo 2:23
names the formal mourning for someone who has died, the public grieving of the bereaved: Jacob mourns his lost son, Samuel mourns Saul, David mourns his dead son.Gen 37:341Sa 15:352Sa 13:37
reaches beyond people to the land itself: fields, pastures, and the ground are said to mourn when drought or judgment leaves them dried up and desolate.Isa 33:9Jer 12:4Hos 4:3Amo 1:2
Names the sound of grief itself, the sigh or groan a body lets out. The prophet is told to groan out loud where people can watch him do it, and to answer them when they ask why he is groaning.Ezk 21:6Ezk 21:7
Belongs to the sufferer, never to whoever caused the suffering. The one groaning is always the one in pain: Israel under forced labor, Jerusalem in her shame, her people while they beg for bread.Exo 2:23Lam 1:8Lam 1:11
Reaches past human sorrow to any creature that can make the sound. Cattle groan when there is no pasture left for them, and the wine harvest failing turns cheerful people into groaning ones.Jol 1:18Isa 24:7
Can mark loyalty rather than injury. The people God spares in the doomed city are marked out precisely because they groan over the evil being done in it, and a nation groans aloud when a wicked man rules it.Ezk 9:4Pro 29:2
Both
They stand side by side in one line about the ruined city, giving the same grief from two sides: the priests groan aloud while the young women are the ones grief has been dealt to.Lam 1:4
Both trace Jerusalem's suffering back to God, from opposite ends of it. Her groaning comes with the confession "you have done it", and the other word names him outright as the one who brought the grief.Lam 1:21Lam 1:5
Both describe whole communities in grief, not only individuals: a nation groaning under a wicked ruler, and a gathering left grieving away from its festival.Pro 29:2Zep 3:18
Names the inflicting of grief rather than any sound. Someone puts the pain there, and the text says who: it was the LORD who did this to Jerusalem for the weight of her rebellions, and who did it on the day of his burning anger.Lam 1:5Lam 1:12
Needs a target as well as a doer, which is why it reads as an accusation. Job charges his friends with tormenting him with their words, and God promises to hand the cup over to the men who tormented his people.Job 19:2Isa 51:23
Keeps the doer in view even at its gentlest. God is said to bring grief and then show mercy, and to bring it without wanting to, not out of any wish of his own heart.Lam 3:32Lam 3:33
Where it does describe the sufferer, it describes a condition that has been done to them rather than a noise they make. The people gathered up are the ones left grieving, shut out from the festival.Zep 3:18
anaḥ in the other biblical languages
στενάζωGreek“to groan”the main New Testament verb for groaning, used of creation and believers groaning while they wait for redemption; it covers much the same ground as this Hebrew word.
Belongs to scenes of public mourning and ruin, the audible sighing of a whole people or city under loss. Jerusalem and her gates sigh after the disaster, and even the animals groan in the famine.Lam 1:4Jol 1:18
Marks the heavy, bitter sigh of those crushed by oppression or bracing for coming judgment, the breath forced out by unbearable burden. Israel groans under slavery in Egypt, and the prophet is told to groan aloud as a sign of the calamity ahead.Exo 2:23Ezk 21:6
Both
Both name a wordless groan or sigh that lets out inner distress too heavy for speech, the body's own response to suffering. Israel groans under bondage, and believers groan while burdened in this earthly tent.Exo 2:232Co 5:4
Both can voice grief toward God over a broken world and long for it to be made right, a groan that is itself a kind of prayer. The afflicted city groans and turns to the Lord, and the whole creation is pictured groaning as the saints groan for redemption.Lam 1:21Rom 8:23
Often names an inward groan of longing, a yearning under present pressure for a relief still to come, rather than only present grief. Believers groan within themselves while they wait for their bodies to be set free, and groan because they want to be clothed with their heavenly dwelling.Rom 8:232Co 5:2
Can be a quiet sigh of compassion or weariness in caring for others, not a cry of one's own suffering. Jesus sighs as he heals a deaf man, and leaders are warned not to do their work with groaning.Mrk 7:34Heb 13:17
What scholars say about anaḥ
The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) agree that the verb means "to sigh, groan" as an audible expression of grief or distress, and it appears only in the niphal (13 times in 12 verses). The word belongs to the vocabulary of lament, standing alongside verbs of groaning and crying out such as אָנַק and זָעַק; in Exodus 2:23 the groaning of the enslaved is paired with a cry that ascends to God, which TDOT treats as a formative instance of the motif of the oppressed groan heard by the deity. In Ezekiel 21:6 the prophet is commanded to groan as a sign-act dramatizing the nation's coming grief. There is no significant dispute over the sense; the interest lies in the theology of lament rather than in the lexical meaning.