Tightness (i.e. figuratively, trouble ); transitively, a female rival
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צָרָה (ṣārāh) names distress, trouble, adversity, affliction, or anguish. Jacob remembers God answering him in distress, Joseph's brothers recall the distress they ignored, kings face military crises, prophets describe invasion and judgment, and psalmists bring personal danger and grief into prayer.
Reader summary
Full entry for צָרָה (H6869) · Open the biblical lexicon
צָרָה (ṣārāh) names distress, trouble, adversity, affliction, or anguish. Jacob remembers God answering him in distress, Joseph's brothers recall the distress they ignored, kings face military crises, prophets describe invasion and judgment, and psalmists bring personal danger and grief into prayer.
The BSB source-word alignment has 73 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include of distress (12), of trouble (11), distress (6), anguish (4), and afflictions (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 35:3. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (24), Jeremiah (8), Isaiah (7), Proverbs (7).
צָרָה (ṣārāh) names distress, trouble, adversity, affliction, or anguish. Jacob remembers God answering him in distress, Joseph's brothers recall the distress they ignored, kings face military crises, prophets describe invasion and judgment, and psalmists bring personal danger and grief into prayer. The noun describes pressure without automatically explaining its cause. Some trouble follows wrongdoing, some is inflicted by oppressors, some comes through communal disaster, and some remains unexplained within the speaker's prayer.
Psalms make distress speakable. Psalm 9:9 calls the Lord a stronghold for the oppressed in times of trouble, Psalm 10:1 asks why God seems far away, Psalm 46:1 confesses present help, and Psalm 77:2 depicts persistent seeking in a day of distress. Psalm 91:15 promises God's presence with the one in trouble, not a life in which trouble never occurs. Lament, protest, memory, petition, and trust can stand together without blaming sufferers for insufficient faith.
Narrative, wisdom, and prophecy add communal responsibility and warning. Proverbs 17:17 says a brother is born for adversity, Nehemiah remembers deliverance when oppressed people cried out, and Nahum 1:7 joins God's goodness and refuge with knowledge of those who take shelter in him. Jeremiah 30:7 and Daniel 12:1 use extraordinary time-of-trouble language in their own prophetic horizons. Those texts should not be mapped onto current headlines without sustained exegesis, nor should distress language replace trauma-informed care, emergency action, or professional help.
Tsarah names constricting trouble across personal guilt, danger, oppression, war, covenant consequence, lament, prophetic judgment, and communal crisis. The word supplies a condition, not a universal explanation.
Joseph's brothers remember seeing his distress and refusing to listen, connecting present guilt with an earlier failure of compassion.
The community asks the Lord to be its strength and salvation in a time of distress.
During drought and national crisis, the prayer addresses the Lord as Israel's hope and Savior in trouble while lamenting apparent distance.
Jonah describes calling from distress and being heard, within a prayer that interprets rescue from the sea.
The Lord is confessed as good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and attentive to those who seek refuge.
The lament asks why God appears distant in times of trouble, preserving honest protest inside prayer.
God is confessed as refuge, strength, and readily available help amid trouble and cosmic instability.
God promises presence with the worshiper in trouble before speaking of rescue and honor.
Adversity becomes a setting in which family solidarity and faithful friendship are tested.
The historical confession remembers oppressed people crying out and receiving deliverers, while the larger prayer also names repeated unfaithfulness.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Adversity rooted in physical constriction; extends to rivalship in marital contexts, especially co-wives.
Adversity rooted in physical constriction; extends to rivalship in marital contexts, especially co-wives.
tightness (i.e. figuratively, trouble); transitively, a female rival BDB: dearth Usage: adversary, adversity, affliction, anguish, distress, tribulation, trouble.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 73 lexical occurrence verses.
The term represents the dangers and pressures that threaten life. Proverbs 11:8
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Tsarah lets people name severe trouble without accepting a premature verdict about why it happened. Joseph's brothers are guilty for ignoring another person's distress, yet many psalms voice trouble without confessing that the sufferer caused it. Psalm 10 protests apparent divine distance; Psalm 46 confesses refuge; Psalm 91 promises presence in trouble rather than immunity from it.
Pastoral care should listen before interpreting, distinguish guilt from victimization, and combine prayer with concrete protection. In crisis this may include emergency services, medical or mental-health care, legal advocacy, food, housing, safety planning, and patient companionship. Prophetic time-of-trouble passages deserve careful historical and canonical study and should not be used to sensationalize headlines or frighten vulnerable people.
Ps.46.1
H6869 is a feminine noun for distress or a constricting crisis. Similar English renderings can describe different causes and agents. The lexical item does not determine whether trouble is deserved, unjustly inflicted, ordinary, traumatic, or eschatological.
New Testament teaching speaks of tribulation, perseverance, comfort, mutual burden-bearing, and hope in Christ. Those themes may extend the canonical response to distress, but each Greek term and passage must be studied rather than assumed to be identical to H6869.
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