To weep ; generally to bemoan
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H1058, bāḵāh, is the Hebrew verb for weeping, mourning, or shedding tears. Scripture uses it for a mother who cannot bear to watch her son die, Abraham mourning Sarah, brothers reunited after estrangement, Hannah praying in bitter distress, a nation grieving the fallen, exiles remembering Zion, worshipers responding to God's word, priests interceding, and Rachel refusing easy comfort for lost children.
Reader summary
Full entry for בָּכָה (H1058) · Open the biblical lexicon
H1058, bāḵāh, is the Hebrew verb for weeping, mourning, or shedding tears. Scripture uses it for a mother who cannot bear to watch her son die, Abraham mourning Sarah, brothers reunited after estrangement, Hannah praying in bitter distress, a nation grieving the fallen, exiles remembering Zion, worshipers responding to God's word, priests interceding, and.
The BSB source-word alignment has 114 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include wept (19), and wept (18), weeping (14), weep (7), . . . (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 21:16. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (16), 2 Samuel (15), 1 Samuel (10), Jeremiah (9).
H1058, bāḵāh, is the Hebrew verb for weeping, mourning, or shedding tears. Scripture uses it for a mother who cannot bear to watch her son die, Abraham mourning Sarah, brothers reunited after estrangement, Hannah praying in bitter distress, a nation grieving the fallen, exiles remembering Zion, worshipers responding to God's word, priests interceding, and Rachel refusing easy comfort for lost children. The tears may arise from bereavement, fear, oppression, repentance, compassion, reunion, or mixed joy and sorrow. The verb names the act; the surrounding story tells readers what the tears mean and whether the response is faithful, manipulated, misdirected, or still awaiting God's answer.
These passages refuse contempt for grief. Abraham weeps for Sarah before arranging burial. Hannah weeps and prays rather than being reduced to the cruel interpretation placed on her. David and his men mourn Saul, Jonathan, and Israel's fallen people without pretending the deaths are simple. Ezra 3 allows older worshipers to weep while others shout for joy at the same foundation. The sound cannot be neatly separated. Yet Nehemiah 8 shows that tears are not the only faithful response: after the people hear the Law, leaders call them from mourning into shared celebration because the day is holy. Scripture makes room both to weep and, at an appointed time, to rise, eat, share, and rejoice.
Pastoral teaching should not turn H1058 into a promise that tears automatically produce a desired outcome, nor use commands not to weep as a weapon against trauma or bereavement. Some tears accompany repentance; others arise from pain inflicted by injustice; some hold love and reunion; some become communal prayer. Jeremiah's Rachel and Matthew's later use of that lament keep the voices of grieving mothers within the biblical story rather than rushing them toward explanation. Joel calls priests to weep on behalf of the people, so spiritual leadership includes truthful intercession, not emotional performance. The word helps churches honor tears, listen for the story they carry, protect vulnerable people, and wait with hope without demanding a timetable for consolation.
H1058 follows tears through threatened loss, death, reconciliation, prayer, national grief, restoration's mixed emotions, encounter with God's word, exile memory, maternal lament, and priestly intercession.
Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.
Hagar's tears rise from maternal terror and forced vulnerability in the wilderness. The story then emphasizes that God hears the boy and opens a way of survival; it does not shame her grief.
She died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went out to mourn and to weep for her.
Abraham's covenant hope does not erase mourning for Sarah. His weeping precedes concrete burial care and public negotiation for a grave.
Esau, however, ran to him and embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. And they both wept.
The brothers' tears belong to an unexpected embrace after fear and estrangement. Emotion accompanies reconciliation, though the wider story still requires prudent boundaries and does not prove every wound is resolved.
Then Joseph threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept as they embraced.
Joseph and Benjamin weep in mutual recognition after years of family loss. Their tears stand inside a longer process of disclosure, testing, truth, and eventual reunion.
In her bitter distress, Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears.
Hannah's tears and prayer are heard by God even when Eli initially misreads her. The narrative gives a distressed woman a truthful voice and corrects careless spiritual judgment.
They mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the people of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.
David's company grieves leaders, friends, and the covenant people together. The lament does not deny Saul's failures or turn national loss into a slogan.
But many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads who had seen the first temple wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple. Still, many others shouted joyfully.
Restoration produces grief and joy at once. Older witnesses remember what was lost while others celebrate what is beginning, and the text preserves both responses in one communal sound.
Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all of them, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the Law.
The leaders do not mock the people's tears. They interpret the holy day and direct the community toward food, shared portions, understanding, and joy after the Law has been heard.
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
Exiles weep through displaced memory. The psalm keeps grief, anger, and longing before God, requiring careful teaching that neither sanitizes trauma nor endorses retaliatory violence.
This is what the Lord says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”
Rachel personifies maternal grief for covenant children lost in judgment and exile. Promises of return follow, but the lament is heard before hope is announced.
Let the priests who minister before the Lord weep between the portico and the altar, saying, “Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not make Your heritage a reproach, an object of scorn among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”
Priestly tears become corporate intercession in a call to return to the Lord. Leaders plead for the people rather than using calamity to display superiority.
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. Weeping as audible, emotional expression of grief; often combines tears with vocal lamentation over loss or calamity.
Weeping as audible, emotional expression of grief; often combines tears with vocal lamentation over loss or calamity.
to weep; generally to bemoan BDB: weep Usage: × at all, bewail, complain, make lamentation, × more, mourn, × sore, × with tears, weep.
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 1 selected witness from 116 lexical occurrence verses.
בָּכָה is a primitive root - no further derivation.
The repeated weeping emphasizes the depth and breadth of Moab’s devastation.Isaiah 15:1-9
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H1058 makes tears part of Scripture's truthful speech about human life before God. Hagar weeps under mortal threat; Abraham weeps in bereavement; estranged brothers weep in reunion; Hannah weeps while praying under misunderstanding; David's company weeps over national loss; exiles weep in memory; priests weep in intercession. Ezra 3 is especially important because restoration sounds like joy and grief at the same time.
Nehemiah 8 is equally important because leaders can, in a particular holy setting, guide a weeping people toward shared food and joy without denying what brought the tears. The canon neither idolizes emotion nor treats it as an embarrassment. Tears can reveal love, fear, injustice, repentance, longing, or confused desire, and they need interpretation rather than suspicion.
Churches formed by these passages listen patiently, protect people whose grief is being exploited, make room for lament in worship, and offer hope without insisting that consolation arrive before truth has been heard.
1Sam.1.10
H1058 is primarily a Qal verb, with a small number of Piel forms that intensify or portray ongoing weeping. It may appear with cognate or adverbial expressions that strengthen the description, as in Hannah's many tears. English versions render forms as weep, cry, mourn, or bewail according to context. The verb identifies visible or audible grief but does not by itself specify sincerity, cause, or theological outcome.
The Old Testament lets tears accompany bereavement, prayer, exile, repentance, reunion, and intercession. Jesus weeps, blesses mourners, receives Jeremiah's Rachel lament into the story of His infancy, and promises final comfort without trivializing present loss. The New Testament also warns that some weeping belongs to judgment. These connections preserve a theology of lament and hope, but the Hebrew verb is not interchangeable with every Greek grief term.