International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Anguish

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International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Anguish


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aṇ´gwish: Extreme distress of body, mind or spirit; excruciating pain or suffering of soul, e.g. excessive grief, remorse, despair. Chiefly expressed in Old Testament, by four derivatives of צוּק, cūḳ, “straitened,” “pressed,” and צר, car, and two derivatives signifying “straitness,” “narrowness,” hence distress; also שׁבץ, shābhāc, “giddiness,” “confusion of mind”; חוּל, ḥūl “to twist” with pain, “writhe.” So in the New Testament, θλῖψις, thlı̄́psis, “a pressing together,” hence affliction, tribulation, στενοχωρία, stenochōrı́a, “narrowness of place,” hence extreme affliction; συνοχή, sunochḗ, “a holding together,” hence distress. The fundamental idea in these various terms is pressure - being straitened, compressed into a narrow place, or pain through physical or mental torture. Used of the physical agony of child-birth (; ; ; ; ); of distress of soul as the result of sin and wickedness (; ; ); of anguish of spirit through the cruel bondage of slavery () and Assyrian oppression (); of the anxiety and pain of Christian love because of the sins of fellow-disciples ().