To depress literally or figuratively, transitive or intransitive (in various applications, as follows)
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H6031 is a broad verb whose context can describe humbling, afflicting, oppressing, forcing, or mistreating a person. That range must be handled carefully because the same lexical family appears in wilderness formation, prayerful self-humbling, divine discipline, and narratives of sexual violence.
Reader summary
Full entry for עָנָה (H6031) · Open the biblical lexicon
H6031 is a broad verb whose context can describe humbling, afflicting, oppressing, forcing, or mistreating a person. That range must be handled carefully because the same lexical family appears in wilderness formation, prayerful self-humbling, divine discipline, and narratives of sexual violence.
The BSB source-word alignment has 82 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include . . . (2), afflicted (2), and afflicted (2), and you shall humble (2), oppress them (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 15:13. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (15), Isaiah (9), Deuteronomy (7), Exodus (6).
This entry includes 6 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
H6031 is a broad verb whose context can describe humbling, afflicting, oppressing, forcing, or mistreating a person. That range must be handled carefully because the same lexical family appears in wilderness formation, prayerful self-humbling, divine discipline, and narratives of sexual violence. Deuteronomy says that God humbled Israel in the wilderness, not to celebrate pain but to expose dependence and test whether the people would keep His commands.
Daniel humbles himself before God in prayer, while Solomon’s temple prayer speaks of affliction that should lead people to confess and turn. In the Tamar narrative, the verb names an act of violation that must never be softened into a lesson about the victim. H6031 therefore opens a theology of affliction that distinguishes formative humbling from oppression and names abuse as wrongdoing.
It does not tell teachers to call every hardship a divine lesson, nor does it make suffering evidence of guilt. Read the subject, object, agency, and moral evaluation in each passage. Faithful teaching protects victims, resists coercion, and lets the text distinguish repentance, discipline, vulnerability, and violence.
H6031 ranges from God’s humbling of Israel and a person’s self-humbling before God to affliction under sin and the violent mistreatment of Tamar. Its breadth requires close attention to agency, purpose, and the text’s moral judgment rather than a single theory of suffering.
When the skies are shut and there is no rain because Your people have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and they turn from their sins because You have afflicted them,
Solomon’s prayer connects affliction with a community’s confession and turning, but the passage must not be used to assign hidden guilt to every suffering person.
“No, my brother!” she cried. “Do not violate me, for such a thing should never be done in Israel. Do not do this disgraceful thing!
Tamar names the proposed act as violation and disgrace, making the passage a clear boundary against sexual violence rather than an illustration of sanctified suffering.
“Do not be afraid, Daniel,” he said, “for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.
Daniel’s humbling is a chosen posture of prayer and seeking understanding, distinct from another person’s coercive mistreatment or oppression.
Remember that these forty years the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.
The wilderness humbling is interpreted through dependence and obedience, yet it should not be generalized into a claim that every painful circumstance has the same divine purpose.
He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Hunger and manna form a lesson in dependence on God’s word, not a permission to romanticize deprivation or neglect the hungry.
He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers had not known, in order to humble you and test you, so that in the end He might cause you to prosper.
The retrospective account joins humbling to provision and intended good, while still requiring the wilderness generation’s specific covenant setting to govern application.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Depression through hardship: affliction, humiliation, or forced labor that weakens and subdues the self or others.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 83 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H6031 demands moral and pastoral precision because its range crosses very different experiences. Deuteronomy describes the Lord humbling Israel in the wilderness through hunger, manna, testing, and dependence. Daniel humbles himself before God as a chosen posture of prayer and understanding. Solomon’s temple prayer speaks of affliction in relation to confession and turning, but even there the text’s covenant setting does not authorize modern teachers to declare that every illness, loss, or disaster proves hidden sin.
The Tamar narrative is a crucial boundary. When she pleads not to be violated, the verb names an act of abuse and disgrace. Her words must be heard as resistance and truth, not converted into a lesson that makes her responsible for another person’s violence. H6031 therefore teaches that similar language can describe formative humbling, self-denial, divine discipline, or oppressive mistreatment, but the subject, agency, and moral evaluation matter.
Teachers should never use wilderness language to sanctify deprivation or use submission language to protect an abuser. Faithful application honors repentance, protects victims, confronts coercion, and trusts the text enough to preserve distinctions that sentimental theology often erases.
Deut.8.2
H6031 is a context-sensitive verb with transitive and reflexive applications, ranging from humbling oneself to afflicting or violating another. Its subject, object, verbal form, and surrounding moral language determine whether the text describes discipline, dependence, oppression, or abuse.
The New Testament continues the call to humble oneself before God while condemning oppression, receiving sufferers with compassion, and protecting the vulnerable. Christ’s suffering does not authorize violence against others; the cross exposes coercive power and calls the church to truthful repentance and care.