אָ֫וֶן
trouble
also: wickedness, sorrow fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H205 appears in the Book of Habakkuk — 2 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Habakkuk
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
און (ʼâven) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “trouble.” It also covers “wickedness” and “sorrow”, alongside “trouble” — see its full sense range. It turns up in 79 verses across 14 books, a moderately common footprint. It concentrates in Psalms, which alone accounts for 37% of its uses. It first appears in Numbers 23:21. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H205 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 79
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 79 distinct verses.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #506
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 506 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 79 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 79 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 52 verses · 66%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 25 verses · 32%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 3%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Iniquity 41×, Vanity 5×, Wicked 4×
- American Standard Version: Iniquity 48×, Wicked 3×, Affliction 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Iniquity 26×, Evil 6×, Wicked 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Iniquity 46×, Evil 7×, Wickedness 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H205 across 78 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 20 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H205 across 78 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 23 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H205 across 68 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 20 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 10 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H205 across 80 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 3 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
- 1. trouble, sorrow בֶּן־אוֹנִי son of my trouble or sorrow Gn 35:18 (E); לֹא הִבִּיט אָוֶן בְּיַעֲקֹב Nu 23:21 (song of Balaam), he doth not behold trouble in Jacob (‖ he doth not see mischief— עָמָל—in Isr.); often ‖ עָמָל, ψ 7:15 (הִנֵּה יְחַבֶּל־אָוֶן lo he travaileth with trouble ‖ וְהָרָה עָמָל וְיָלַד שָׁ֑קֶר, yea he hath conceived misery & brought forth a lie), prob. thence Jb 15:35 (הָרֹה עָמָל וְיָלֹד אָוֶן) = Is 59:4; cf. עָמָל וָאָוֶן ψ 10:7; 55:11; 90:10; Jb 4:8; 5:6 Is 10:1 (v. עָמָל); also זוֹרֵעַ עַוְלָה יִקְצָר־אָוֶן Pr 22:8 the sower of iniquity shall reap trouble; in this sense elsewhere only Dt 26:14 Pr 12:21 Je 4:15 Hb 3:7 Am 5:5, pl. intens. לֶחֶם אוֹנִים bread of trouble, sorrow, or mourning Ho 9:4. e.g. Genesis 35:18
- 2. idolatry Ho 12:12; אָוֶן וּתְרָפִים הַפְצַ֑ר stubbornness is idolatry & (the use of) teraphim 1 S 15:23 (poet. source); בֵּית אָוֶן Ho 4:15 (for בֵּית אֵל because Bethel, house of God, is given over to idolatry) so also 5:8; 10:5 cf. בָּמוֹת א׳ Ho 10:8; בִּקְעַת א׳ Am 1:5 (Baalbek); בַּחוּרֵי א׳ read אוֹן, אֹן = On, Heliopolis Ez 30:17;—abstr. for concr. = idols Is 41:29; 66:3. e.g. Hosea 12:12
- 3. trouble of iniquity, wickedness, מְתֵי אָוֶן Jb 22:15; אַנְשֵׁי א׳ 34:36 = men of trouble, troublers, wicked men; cf. אִישׁ א׳ Pr 6:12; Is 55:7; פֹּעֲלֵי אָוֶן workers of trouble, evil-doers, workers of iniquity Jb 31:3; 34:8, 22 ψ 5:6 + (16 times chiefly late ψ) Pr 10:29; 21:15 Is 31:2 Ho 6:8; מַחְשְׁבוֹת אָוֶן thoughts of trouble, wicked imaginations Pr 6:18 Is 59:7 Je 4:14; often of words & thoughts Jb 11:11 + (5 times) ψ 36:5 + (9 times) Pr 17:4; 19:28; 30:20 Is 29:20; 32:6; 58:9; 59:6 Ez 11:2 Mi 2:1 Hb 1:3 Zc 10:2; לֹא אוּכַל אָוֶן וַעֲצָרָה Is 1:13 I cannot bear iniquity with the solemn meeting (RV & most mod.; AV it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting). e.g. Job 22:15
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
n.m. Jb 5:6 trouble, sorrow, wickedness—abs. Nu 23:21 +; sf. אוֹנִי Gn 35:18 etc.; pl. אוֹנִים Ho 9:4—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: from an unused root perhaps meaning properly, to pant (hence, to exert oneself, usually in vain
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
אָוֶן
- √או = עו to curve, be curved, hollow; to press, be pressed; v. אוי,
- 1. oppression, wrong (= עָוֹן)
- 2. falsehood, vanity (= הֶבֶל). א׳ גִּלְיוֹן a cacophemistic adaptation of εὐαγγέλιον (v. גליון). Sabb. 116ᵃ bot. (after לסכוניה, omitted in ed.) דר׳ מאיר א׳ ג׳ ר׳ יוחנן קרי ליה עון גליון (Rashi Ms. ר׳ מאיר, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) R. Meïr called the gospel falsehood of blank paper (or of revelation), R. Yoḥ. called it sin of &c. [Ib. several times עון גליון or און ג׳ in Ms. a. older editions, for אירייתא אחריתי &c. in recent ed., v. Rabb. D. S. a. l.]
אוֹן
- possession, power. Tosef. Ab. Zar. III, 16 (IV, beg.) כתב לו או̇נו̇ if he (the seller of the slave) wrote to him (gave him in writing) the liberty of his disposal of himself, i.e. that the slave, if he should run away from the buyer, would not be claimed by him who sold him; Git. 43ᵇ כתב עליו אונו (read אליו or לו). Ib. מאי אונו what means ‘his own possession’? Ans. He wrote to him this, ‘If thou run away from him (the purchaser), I have nothing to do with thee. Ib. 85ᵇ.—[Y. B. Mets. I, end, 8ᵃ; Y. Kidd. I, 60ᶜ אונו, v. אוֹנִי.] V. אוֹנָה.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 25 distinct written forms H205 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H205, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derived from this word
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 72 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 79 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Numbers 23:21
- Deuteronomy 26:14
- 1 Samuel 15:23
- Job 4:8
- Psalms 5:5
- Proverbs 6:12
- Isaiah 1:13
- Jeremiah 4:14
- Ezekiel 11:2
- Hosea 6:8
- Amos 5:5
- Micah 2:1
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
