יָגֵעַ
to toil
also: labour, grow weary, be weary fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘toil’
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
Person
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms 15 distinct
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 5 times (19%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 4 times (15%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Feminine, Singular 4 times (15%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (8%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Plural 1 time (4%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (4%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (4%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (4%)
+7 more forms (7 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 26 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H3021 appears — 25 distinct verses across 11 books. 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.
Joshua 2 verses
- Joshua 7:3 תְּיַגַּע Piel juss 2ms They returned to Joshua, and said to him, Don't let all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and strike Ai; don't make all the people to toil there; for they are but few.
- Joshua 24:13 יָגַ֣עְתָּ Qal pf 2ms I gave you a land whereon you had not labored, and cities which you didn't build, and you dwell therein; of vineyards and olive groves which you didn't plant do you eat.
2 Samuel 1 verse
Job 1 verse
Psalms 2 verses
Proverbs 1 verse
Ecclesiastes 1 verse
Isaiah 12 verses
- Isaiah 40:28 יִיגָ֑ע Qal impf 3ms Have you not known? have you not heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn't faint, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding.
- Isaiah 40:30 וְ/יִגָ֑עוּ conj + Qal impf 3mp Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
- Isaiah 40:31 יִיגָ֔עוּ Qal impf 3mp but those who wait for Yahweh shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.
- Isaiah 43:22 יָגַ֥עְתָּ Qal pf 2ms Yet you have not called on me, Jacob; but you have been weary of me, Israel.
- Isaiah 43:23 הוֹגַעְתִּ֖י/ךָ Hiphil pf 1cs + sfx pers 2ms You have not brought me of your sheep for burnt offerings; neither have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, nor wearied you with frankincense.
- Isaiah 43:24 הוֹגַעְתַּ֖/נִי Hiphil pf 2ms + sfx pers 1cs You have bought me no sweet cane with money, neither have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices; but you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.
- Isaiah 47:12 יָגַ֖עַתְּ Qal pf 2fs Stand now with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth; if so be you shall be able to profit, if so be you may prevail.
- Isaiah 47:15 יָגָ֑עַתְּ Qal pf 2fs Thus shall the things be to you in which you have labored: those who have trafficked with you from your youth shall wander everyone to his quarter; there shall be none to save you.
- Isaiah 49:4 יָגַ֔עְתִּי Qal pf 1cs But I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely the justice [due] to me is with Yahweh, and my recompense with my God.
- Isaiah 57:10 יָגַ֔עַתְּ Qal pf 2fs You were wearied with the length of your way; yet you didn't say, It is in vain: you found a reviving of your strength; therefore you weren't faint.
- Isaiah 62:8 יָגַ֖עַתְּ Qal pf 2fs Yahweh has sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give your grain to be food for your enemies; and foreigners shall not drink your new wine, for which you have labored:
- Isaiah 65:23 יִֽיגְעוּ֙ Qal impf 3mp They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for calamity; for they are the seed of the blessed of Yahweh, and their offspring with them.
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 45:3 יָגַ֨עְתִּי֙ Qal pf 1cs You did say, Woe is me now! for Yahweh has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.
- Jeremiah 51:58 וְ/יִֽגְע֨וּ conj + Qal impf 3mp Thus says Yahweh of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.
Lamentations 1 verse
Habakkuk 1 verse
Malachi 1 verse
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.
The Hebrew verb יגע centers on the idea of “to toil.” Its earliest occurrence is Joshua 7:3. It turns up in 25 verses across 11 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to Isaiah (48%), then Joshua and Psalms. Different stems carry different senses — BDB groups them under 3 stems, among them Qal and Piel. Dig into 25-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3021 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 →
- 25
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 25 distinct verses.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,251
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,251 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 25 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 25 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 19 verses · 76%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 24%
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: Be weary 2×, I am weary 2×, Labour 2×
- American Standard Version: I am weary 3×, Be weary 2×, Thou hast labored 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Labor 3×, I am weary 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Become weary 3×, Do 2×, I am weary 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3021 across 26 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 H3021 across 26 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 19 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 H3021 across 26 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 21 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3021 across 33 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 22 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
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
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 5 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.
Qal
- Pf. יָֽגְעָה 2 S 23:10; יָגַ֫עְתָּ Jos 24:13 Is 43:22; יָגַ֫עַתְּ 47:12 + 2 times; יָגָ֑עַתְּ Is 47:15; יָגַ֫עְתִּי ψ 6:7 + 3 times; יָגַ֫עְנוּ La 5:5; Impf. יִיגָ֑ע Is 40:28; 2 ms. תִּיגַע Pr 23:4; אִיגָ֑ע Jb 9:29; יִיגְעוּ Hb 2:13; יִֽגְעוּ Je 51:58 Is 65:23; יִיגָ֑עוּ Is 40:31; יִגָ֑עוּ v 30;— e.g. 2 Samuel 23:10
- 1. toil, labour for (בְּ), Jos 24:13 (D), Is 62:8; sq. acc. (אשׁר) 47:15; sq. בְּ instr. v 12; abs. 49:4 (לְרִיק, ‖ וְהֶבֶל כֹּחִי כִלֵּיתִי), cf. 65:23 Je 51:58 (‖ יעף), Hb 2:13 (‖ id.), La 5:5 (‖ לֹא־הוּנַּח־לָ֑נוּ), Jb 9:29, sq. inf. Pr 23:4. e.g. Joshua 24:13
- 2. grow or be weary, from toil, exertion, endurance, 2 S 23:10 (om. by accident ‖ 1 Ch 11:13); weary because of, sq. בְּ, ψ 6:7; 69:4 Is 43:22; 57:10 Je 45:3; abs. Is 40:28, 30, 31 (in all ‖ יעף). e.g. 2 Samuel 23:10
Piel
- Impf. 3 fs. sf. 3 ms. תְּיַגְּעֶנּוּ Ec 10:15 weary, make weary, subj. עֲמַל הכסילים; 2 ms. תְּיַגַּע cause to go toilsomely Jos 7:3, sq. acc. e.g. Ecclesiastes 10:15
Hiphil
- Pf. 2 ms. sf. הוֹגַעְתַּנִי Is 43:24; הוֹגַעְתִּיךָ v 23; pl. הוֹגַעְתֶּם Mal 2:17; הוֹגָ֑עְנוּ v 17;—make to toil (always c. בְּ instr.), c. acc. pers. make to toil, weary Is 43:23 (‖ העביד), obj. י׳ v 24 (weary, fig.), and so Mal 2:17(×2). e.g. Isaiah 43:24
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
vb. toil, grow or be weary (NH id.; Assyrian êgû, grow weary DlPr 140; Arabic وَجِعَ have pain, suffer)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
יָגַע
- [to feel pain,] to take pains, to labor; to be tired. Ber. 58ᵃ, v. יְגִיעָה. Y. ib. V, 5ᶜ אנו יָגַעְנוּ וכ׳ we have been busy at work for an entire day. Ib. י׳ זה לשתי וכ׳ this one has worked (accomplished) more in two hours &c.; Ib. כך י׳ … בתורה וכ׳ so has R. Bun accomplished in studies in the twenty eight years (of his life) &c.; Cant. R. to VI, 2; Koh. R. to V, 11. Meg. 6ᵇ אם יאמר … יָגַעְתִּי וכ׳ if one tells thee, ‘I have toiled (studied) and achieved nothing’, do not believe; ‘I have not toiled and have achieved’, do not believe &c.—Y. Ber. IX, end, 14ᵈ צריך לִיגַע בתורה must study the Law. Midr. Till. to Ps. XII, beg. חדלו מליגע בתורה they ceased from studying the Law; a. fr.
- to put to trouble, to weary. Sot. II, 1 (14ᵃ) כדי לְיַגְּעָהּ (Rashi: לְיַי׳) in order to wear her out (so that she may be induced to confess). Sifra Vayikra, Ḥobah, Par. 5, ch. VII אבל אם היה מְיַגְּעָן וכ׳ but if after having troubled them (the judges) an entire day, he says finally &c.; Yalk. Lev. 469 היה מונע (corr. acc.); Tosef. Toh. VI, 14 ומשהגיע (read ומשהִגִּיעָן Hif.). Y. Bets. II, 61ᶜ bot. מתוך שאתה מְיַיגְּעוֹ וכ׳ because you put him to special trouble (by ordering a special form of cakes) &c.—Ex. R. s. 41 התלמיד … יִגַּעְתִּיךָ the pupil says to the teacher, I have wearied thee; Yalk. Sam. 161; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְיוּגָּע, pl. מְיוּגָּעִים, מְיוּגָּעִין. Keth. 8ᵇ ואתם אחינו המ׳ המדוכאין וכ׳ and you, our brethren, who are worn out and crushed by this bereavement.
- (הִגִּיעַ) same. Tosef. Toh. VI, 14, v. supra. Midr. Till. to Ps. XXXIX, beg. (ref. to Mal. II, 17) הוֹגַעְתֶּם לי במעשיכם וכ׳ (ed. Bub., differ.) it does not say, you wore me out with your doings, but with your words. Midr. Till. to Ps. XVIII, 36 והרב … רב לך כי הוֹגַעְתִּיךָ and the teacher will say to the pupil, thou hast enough now, for I have wearied thee?; a. e. e.g. Malachi 2:17
- , Nithpa. נִתְיַיגֵּעַ to be tired, to take pains. Gitt. 70ᵃ הבא בדרך ונ׳ who has been travelling and is tired. Pesik. Shub., p. 164ᵃ שלא תִתְיַיגֵּעַ בחזירה that you may not get tired on your way back. Pesik. R. s. 14 אני נִתְיַיגַּעְתִּי בה וכ׳ I took pains with her and smote her &c.; a. fr.
יָגֵעַ
- preced.) wearied, painstaking. Ex. R. s. 13, beg. במה אני יי׳ of whom am I wearied?—Y. Ḥag. II, 77ᵇ bot. זה הוא הלשון שהיה י׳ וכ׳ is this the tongue which was wearing itself out with teaching the Law?; a. fr.—Pl. יְגֵעִים, יְגֵעִין, יְגֵי׳. Midr. Till. to Ps. XII, beg. י׳ בתורה studying the Law. Y. Peah I, 15ᵇ bot. ref. to Deut. XXXII, 47) ואם רק הוא מכם למה שאין אתם י׳ בו and if it (the word of the Law) seems to you empty, it is your fault, … because you do not study it carefully; אימתי בשעה שאתם י׳ בו when (is it your life)? When you are busy studying it; Y. Succ. IV, beg. 54ᵇ; a. fr. e.g. Deuteronomy 32:47
יָגָע
- m. (b. h.) = יְגִיעָה. Gen. R. s. 10, end, v. יְגִיעָה
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 H3021 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 H3021, 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
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 24 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 25 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
- Joshua 7:3
- 2 Samuel 23:10
- Job 9:29
- Psalms 6:6
- Proverbs 23:4
- Ecclesiastes 10:15
- Isaiah 40:28
- Jeremiah 45:3
- Lamentations 5:5
- Habakkuk 2:13
- Malachi 2:17
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.
