a sigh or groan: the heavy, audible breath that grief, pain, or hardship forces out of a person
This word names the sound itself. Hebrew has a verb for the act of sighing (אָנַח); this is the noun for what that act produces, the groan you can hear, count, and be worn out by. It is not a shout and not a speech: it is what is left of a voice when the pain has taken the words away.
Almost every appearance sits inside a prayer or a lament, and the word does three things there:
- it names one groan, loud enough that its sound alone wastes the body away
- it names a groan set out before God, something he sees and does not overlook
- it names a whole life or age filled with sighing, standing beside grief as the sum of someone's misery
That last use is why the word turns up in Israel's brightest promises. When the prophets picture the rescued coming home to Zion, what runs away from them is "sorrow and sighing," so the end of sighing becomes shorthand for the end of suffering itself. The same logic works in reverse against an oppressor: a conquering power's reign ends when God brings all its sighing to a stop.
Because it is a sound and not an idea, the word is always tied to a body. Sighing keeps a sufferer from eating, floods a bed at night, and dries the bones. It is grief made audible.