Woe

Is sometimes used in our Bibles where a softer expression would be at least equally proper: "Woe to such a one!" is in our language a threat or imprecation of some calamity, natural or judicial, to befall a person; but this is not always the meaning of the word in Scripture. We find the expression, "Woe is me!" that is, Alas for my sufferings! And, "Woe to the women with child, and those who give suck!" that is, Alas for their redoubled sufferings in times of distress! If in the denunciatory language of Christ, we should read, "Alas for thee, Chorazin! Alas for thee, Bethsaida!" we should do not injustice to the general sentiments of the passage.\par Yet in many cases the word woe is used in a fuller and more awful sense, expressing an inspired denunciation and foreshadowing of God’s wrath upon sinners; as when we read, "Woe to those who build houses by unrighteousness, and cities by blood;" woe to those who are "rebellious against God," etc., in numerous passages, especially of the Old Testament, Hab 2:6,9,12,15,19 Zep 3:1 .\par

A declaration of ’woe’ on man is frequently found in scripture. It is especially pronounced on those who have had privileges and have not answered to them. In the Prophets there are many woes against Israel and Judah, and also against the nations which had to do with Israel. The Lord when on earth pronounced woes upon those who should have been the leaders of His people. The Revelation shows that God’s ’woes’ will fall with mighty power on those denounced. Rev 18:13; etc.

WOE.—The word οὐαί (in LXX Septuagint for the most part the translation of אוֹי and הוֹי) was spoken by our Lord in virtue of His prophetic office. He was ‘the prophet that cometh into the world’ (Joh 6:14), the decisive exponent of God’s will (Deu 18:15 f., Act 3:22 f., Heb 1:1-2). As in the mouth of the OT prophets, so in His, ‘the word of Yahwè must of necessity be a word of woe to a sinful people’ [Encyc. Bibl. iii. 3875). Like them, He was ‘full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin’ (Mic 3:8). Two characters he specially abhorred—those of the seducer and the hypocrite. His language respecting the Jewish leaders is ‘part of the judicial language of the first Advent’ (Mozley, University Serm. 29). Other Woes He utters with a sob of pity; but His indictment of the scribes and Pharisees is spoken with the wrath of love (cf. Rev 6:16). His ‘prophetic plainness’ is a trait that must not be left out of view in studying ‘the mind of Christ,’ and in contemplating His work as Priest and King. ‘As well as meekness there was anger, and besides tenderness there was strength’ (Hall Caine, Illus. Lond. News, 7th Mar. 1891; cf. Tennyson, Memoir by his Son, i. 326; Ecce Homo^{1 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} , 272, 276).—St. Mark reports only two instances of our Lord’s using the word οὐαί. It does not occur in St. John. But St. John reports many stern utterances respecting those who sinned against light.

The Woe of Mar 13:17 (|| Mat 24:19, Luk 21:23) was spoken by Christ with deep commiseration; at the same time the passage in which it occurs is a prophetic one relating to the doom of Jerusalem which had rejected Him (cf. Luk 23:28-29). Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica iii. 5) and Epiphanius (de Mens. 15) mention the flight of the Christians. Mat 11:21 (|| Luk 10:13)—where the mention of Chorazin shows how much of our Lord’s work is left unrecorded (Plummer)—is part of a farewell lamentation over the three cities by the Lake which had seen His manifestations of Divine power but had not repented, and agrees with other fore-warnings that judgment will be most woeful for those who have thrown away the highest opportunities (Mat 12:41-42 || Luk 11:31-32; cf. Luk 12:47-48).—In Mat 18:7 (|| Luk 17:1, cf. Mar 9:42), the first Woe is spoken in pity, but the second in wrath. As is shown by the ἀνάγκη γάρ and the corresponding words in Lk., as well as by the context, οὐαὶ τῷ κόσμῳ is a lamentation over the ills brought on mankind by ambitions and selfish passions. The egotist and ambitionist (to use a word of Carlyle’s) becomes the oppressor of the weak, and he also becomes their seducer,—a character for which Christ had such a loathing that He said ‘it were better for him [who bears it] that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’ The second Woe, introduced by πλήν (on which word see Plummer, St. Luke, 182), is directed against a man of this sort (τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἐκείνῳ, the latter word putting him outside the pale of sympathy and respect), who, in our Lord’s view, has committed the most heinous crime against the law of love (cf. Bruce, Expos. Gr. Test. 237; Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, i. 344; Carr, Expositor, 1898 (ii.), 348; Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible iii. 586^a).

Of the two passages in which our Lord pronounces woe against the contemporary leaders of Judaism, the one in Luke 11 is an early utterance, and was spoken in the house of a Pharisee who had asked Him to dine with him (v. 37), while the other in Matthew 23 is a late and public denunciation of them in Jerusalem on the eve of His death. It was spoken when they were present, and for the purpose of warning the multitudes and His disciples to beware of them: hence, the real parallel to Matthew 23 in Mk. and Lk. is to be found in the brief sayings reported in Mar 12:38-40 and Luk 20:45-47.

In Luk 11:42-44; Luk 11:46-47; Luk 11:52 there are two indictments containing three Woes apiece, and addressed to Pharisees and lawyers (wh. see) respectively. Sentence is first pronounced upon the Pharisees for being so punctilious about matters of a subordinate nature, which should be kept in their proper place, while they neglected those moral obligations, which, were of far higher moment, ‘judgment and the love of God’ (Luk 11:42); for putting themselves forward into the first seats in the face of the congregation, and their fondness for having reverence done to them in public (Luk 11:43); and for being a secret source of defilement to others who were not aware of the evil tendency of their principles (Luk 11:44, cf. Luk 12:1). The second of these charges occurs, but without a Woe in Mat 23:6-7; while the other two are repeated in a more severe form in Mat 23:23; Mat 23:27.

The lawyers are then condemned for amplifying the written Law with their intolerably burdensome enactments, which they contrive to evade themselves, while so rigorous in exacting obedience to them from others (Luk 11:46); for their zeal in the erection and adornment of the tombs of the prophets, which, in bitter irony, is pronounced to be a sign of their continuing the work of the murderers of the prophets (Luk 11:47-48; Wendt, i. 281; Ecce Homo^{1 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} , 267); and for taking away ‘the key of knowledge’ (see Keys) by their traditional interpretations, which rendered the people incapable of recognizing the living truth (Luk 11:52). The first of these charges is found in Mat 23:4 without a Woe; the others are repeated in Mat 23:13; Mat 23:29 ff.

This later denunciation (Mat 23:13, (14),* [Note: Mat 23:14 is probably an Interpolation from Mar 12:40. Its omission or transposition in the MSS may, however, be due to the fact that several sentences in succession begin with the same words (Scrivener, Introd.4 i. 9).] Mat 23:15-16; Mat 23:23; Mat 23:25; Mat 23:27; Mat 23:29; Cf. Isa 5:8; Isa 5:11; Isa 5:18; Isa 5:20-22; Hab 2:6; Hab 2:9; Hab 2:12; Hab 2:15; Hab 2:19) is still more impressive on account of its epic strain (‘octies vae; Mat 5:3-11 octies beati,’ Bengel). It shows how intense is the heat of our Lord’s wrath when it is kindled (Psa 2:12), as no other continuous passage in the Gospels does. In it, our Lord pronounces woe against the scribes and Pharisees for their ‘hypocrisy’ or their dishonesty and love of stage-effect in religion, which was to Him the most hateful impiety; also for shutting the doors of the Kingdom of God which He had opened by His preaching, and so preventing people from entering (Mat 23:13, cf. Rev 3:6); for plundering (prob. wealthy and devout) widows (Plummer cites examples from the Talmud), and deceiving simple-minded people (Theophylact) by the long prayers they make (Mat 23:14); for carrying on a most laborious propaganda for the purpose of gaining proselytes (cf. Josephus Ant. xx. ii. 4), and then making them more full of spiritual pride than themselves (Mat 23:15, cf. the Judaistic proselytizers who so relentlessly dogged St. Paul’s footsteps, Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible iv. 136^b); For pretending to guide others in the doing of God’s will when they showed that they were so wanting in moral perception themselves (cf. Mat 15:14 || Luk 6:39); as, for example, when they subverted truth and justice by the sophistical distinctions they made in regard to the binding nature of different kinds of oaths (Mat 23:16-22, cf. Mar 7:6-13). He then condemned them for omitting ‘the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and fidelity,’ while they were so exact in tithing their smaller garden herbs, thus ‘straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel’ (Mat 23:23-24); and for so carefully observing, ‘in preparing their food, the ceremonial rules for preserving their Levitical purity,’ while they were not careful ‘to avoid the moral defilement caused by the unlawful acquisition of that food, and by using it to minister to intemperance’ (Mat 23:25-26, Wendt, i. 327). He compared the fair show of goodness they made with the artificial whiteness imparted to sepulchres by washing them with lime in spring (Mat 23:27-28, cf. Holtzmann, Meyer, in loc.; Encyc. Bibl. iv. 5138). The final Woe was pronounced with a stinging reference to the honours they were paying to the prophets whom their fathers killed (Mat 23:29-31); and, the cup of His indignation brimming over at the thought of His own impending death at their hands, He said, ‘Fill ye up then the measure of (the sins of) your fathers’ (Mat 23:32).

‘Tremendous’ (Mozley) as this language is, we are not to think that it was meant to apply to all the Pharisees indiscriminately. Nicodemus was a Pharisee (Joh 3:1), and there were, doubtless, many others (cf. Act 5:34) with respect to whom the charge of hypocrisy was inadmissible. Paul, as a Pharisee, was no hypocrite (Php 3:5-6); his Pharisaic upbringing was an important part of his providential training for his Christian Apostleship, and ‘from Pharisaism in so far as it meant zeal for the highest objects of Jewish faith he never departed, and never could depart’ (Act 26:5; Act 26:22; Hort, Judaistic Christianity, 108 ff.). In this very chapter, our Lord admits their authority as that of those who ‘sit in Moses’ seat,’ and even gives His sanction to some of their minor observances (Mat 23:2; Mat 23:23; cf. Hort, 31–32). A well-known passage in the Talmud, distinguishing the various classes of Pharisees from each other, says that the real and only Pharisee is ‘he who does the will of his Father in heaven because he loves Him’ (Levy, NHWB [Note: HWB Neuhebräisehes Wörterbuch.] 4. 143).

In his famous article on the Talmud (Qu. Review, Oct. 1867), the late Emanuel Deutsch pronounced a warm panegyric on ‘the chiefly Pharisaic masters of the Mishnic period’ for their ‘wisdom, piety, kindness, and high and noble courage’ (Literary Remains, 29). C. G. Monteflore (Hibbert Journal, Jan. 1903) has called attention to the ‘new and large material, so interesting, so counter to current conceptions and verdicts,’ produced by Schechter, ‘the foremost Rabbinic scholar of his age,’ in his articles in the JQR [Note: QR Jewish Quarterly Review.] (1894–1990). But ‘Schechter confesses that the view he has to give of Rabbinical religion presents a blank at the important period’—the time of Christ. ‘We are driven back, therefore, on the Gospels.* [Note: 7 of the Assumption of Moses (not later than a.d. 30), which has been supposed to refer to the Pharisees (Hastings’ DB, Extra Vol. 53a), is more probably a description of the Sadducees (Charles, Encyc. Bibl. i. 236).] … The evidence they afford appears irresistible … and an appeal to the principles of the religion as set forth in the OT and in the Mishnah cannot prevail to discredit the facts there recorded’ (Menzies, Hibbert Journal, July, 1903). There is thus no reasonable ground for doubt that during our Lord’s life on earth the scribes and Pharisees were immersed in that externalism and religious affectation which He so vividly depicted; and it was their implacable hostility to His spiritual teaching, begun at a very early period in His ministry (Mar 3:6), that in the end brought about His crucifixion.

Mar 14:21 (|| Mat 26:24, Luk 22:22) οὐαὶ δέ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἐκείνῳ διʼ οὗ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδίδοται; Lk. has πλὴν οὐαί, bringing out with emphasis the responsibility of Judas, who was free to act, notwithstanding the τὸ ὡρισμένον. This, which is perhaps the saddest sentence in the Gospels, was spoken without vindictiveness, although it undoubtedly reveals that our Lord was wounded to the quick by the treachery of Judas. The ἐκείνῳ seems to set him finally outside the circle of the disciples (cf. Westcott on Joh 13:27). But this Woe is not an imprecation like Psalms 109. It is not the devoting of Judas to destruction. Similarly the words which follow, καλὸν αὐτῷ εἰ οὐκ ἐγεννήθη ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐκεῖνος, are ‘not to be pressed with logical rigour’ (Meyer), but are to be understood as meaning, ‘Better not to have lived at all than to have lived to betray the Son of Man.’ The whole saying witnesses to the anguish that our Lord felt on account of the perfidy of this false friend (cf. Psa 41:9, Joh 13:18); and we can sympathize with Keim when he says (Jesus of Nazara, v. 286) that we should have to greet it as the removal of a hundred-pound weight from the heart of Christendom if the treachery of Judas could be proved to have had no existence. But this is as impossible as to remove the burden, ‘Tiberio imperitante, supplicio adfectus erat,’ from the heart of mankind.

There still remain the four Woes which in Luk 6:24-26 are set over against the four Beatitudes in Luk 6:20-23. Their authenticity, as well as that of the Beatitudes in their Lukan form, is called in question by many distinguished scholars (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , Ext. Vol. 16; Encyc. Bibl. iv. 4383), but on grounds that are very far from convincing. The objection taken to the Woes from their being omitted in Mt. is not of much weight. The data for determining the precise relation between the sermons in Mt. and Lk. are wanting. Each of the writers may have had before him a different report of the same Sermon; or there may have been two similar but different Sermons, reported in two distinct documents, of which the one was used by Mt. and the other by Luke. In either case, the omission of the Woes in Mt. would be sufficiently accounted for (cf. Sanday, Expositor, 1891 (i.), 311 ff.; Loisy, Le Discours sur la Montagne, quoted in Expositor, 1904 (ii.), 103). The external form in which the Woes (and also the Beatitudes) are set forth illustrates our Lord’s method of teaching ‘by aiming at the greatest clearness in the briefest compass’ (Wendt, Teaching, i. 130, 134; cf. ii. 68); the characteristics stated were comprehensive and significant enough to enable His hearers to understand who were the persons intended. When He began by saying, ‘Blessed are ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God,’ He gave His hearers the key to the meaning of the other utterances which followed. For ‘the poor’ (the ‘ăniyyîm) was a term that had long had an ethical and spiritual connotation (cf. Driver, art. ‘Poor’ in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible iv. 19, 20; Harnack, What is Christianity? 92); and this would prevent our Lord’s utterances from being interpreted in a materialistic sense. See artt. Ebionism, Poor, Poverty, Wealth.

In our opinion it is more probable that the Woes are authentic than that they are inferences from our Lord’s teaching (Bruce, Kingdom of God, 10), or that they ‘arose in consequence of the affliction of the persecuted Christians’ (Meyer, Com. on Lk., p. 55), or that they ‘were constructed for the purpose of strengthening and interpreting the Beatitudes, after the model of Deu 27:15 ff., Is 5:8 ff. (Holtzmann, Hand-Commentar, 104). In view of the social conditions that exist at the present day, can it be said that their admonition is unneeded, or that they are not still living utterances? See also artt. Beatitude and Sermon on the Mount; and cf. Moulton, art. ‘Synoptic Studies’ in Expositor for August 1906.

James Donald.

See CURSE.

An exclamation denoting pain or displeasure. Less frequently, it occurs as a noun denoting a disaster or calamity. For example, in Revelation 9:12, following the release of the locusts from the abyss and their devastation upon those who follow the Beast, John announces, “The first woe has passed. Behold, two woes are still to follow.” Again, in Revelation 11:14, immediately before the seventh trumpet is sounded, John writes, “The second woe has passed. Behold, the third woe is coming shortly.” The woes in Revelation are like the Old Testament plagues. They are more intense, though, as they are demonic in origin.

The Greek word is onomatopoeic (the sound is similar to the thing it describes): ouai (compare the Hebrew oi and hoi).

Woe does not automatically imply a judgment in each situation. At times, it shows regret or sorrow about the sad situation that prompted it. In each case, the context needs to be taken into consideration. In Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13, when Jesus says, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!” he was reproaching the people of those cities for their unbelief. The same is true in Luke 17:2. Jesus pronounces woe upon the one who causes another to sin: “It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck.” The Lucan Sermon on the Plain follows the Beatitudes with four woe statements. These statements are not so much threats as they are expressions of regret or compassion.

Aquifer Open Bible Dictionary © 2026 Mission Mutual, an adaptation of the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

An exclamation of judgment upon God's enemies, or of misfortune on oneself, or, in the ministry of Jesus Christ, of sadness over those who fail to recognise the true misery of their condition.

Woe as an exclamation of judgment on others

Woe to God's enemies

ISA 33:1 Probably referring to Assyria. See also JER 48:1–48:2; NAM 3:1–3:7; HAB 2:6–2:20; ZEP 2:5

Woe to God's faithless people

HOS 7:13–7:16 See also ISA 30:1–30:2, ISA 45:9–45:10; JER 4:13–4:18; EZK 16:23–16:27

Woe to careless leaders of God's people

JER 23:1–23:2 See also EZK 13:1–13:9, EZK 34:1–34:10; ZEP 3:1–3:4; ZEC 11:15–11:17

Woe to those who are complacent in their prosperity or religion

AMO 6:1–6:7 See also AMO 5:18–5:24

Woe to those who neglect social justice

ISA 10:1–10:4 See also ISA 5:8–5:23; JER 22:13–22:19; MIC 2:1–2:3

Woe to a godless world

REV 8:13 See also REV 12:12, REV 18:10, REV 18:16–18:17, REV 18:19

Woe as an exclamation of misfortune on oneself

Woe as a consequence of circumstances or events

JER 10:19 Jeremiah is describing the pain he feels at the impending destruction of his nation. See also 1SA 4:6–4:8; PSA 120:5–120:7; JER 4:13

Woe as a consequence of one's own sin

LAM 5:16 See also ISA 3:8–3:9, ISA 6:5

Woe as a consequence of God's call on one's life

1CO 9:16 See also JER 45:1–45:5; EZK 2:9–3:11

Woe as an exclamation of sadness over others

Woe to those who do not recognise their own needs

LUK 6:24–6:26

Woe to those whose religion blinds themselves and misleads others

LUK 11:52 See also MAT 23:13–23:33; LUK 11:42–11:51

Woe to those who cause others to sin

MAT 18:7 See also LUK 17:1–17:3

Woe to those on whom judgment is coming

LUK 10:13–10:14 parallel MAT 11:20–11:22

Woe to the one who betrays the Son of Man

MAT 26:24 parallels MRK 14:21, LUK 22:22

Woe to those who experience the signs of the end of the age

MAT 24:19–24:21 parallels MRK 13:17–13:19, LUK 21:23 The word translated “how dreadful” is the same word that elsewhere is translated “woe”.

Woe may give way to forgiveness, comfort and deliverance

ISA 6:5–6:7 See also ISA 29:1–29:8, ISA 40:1–40:2 After the woes of earlier chapters, Isaiah now prophesies the comfort that will come to God's people; JER 45:2–45:5; LAM 3:16–3:26

Dictionary of Bible Themes © 1999 Martin H. Manser. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.