Woe Is Me
When do you ever say “woe” other than in the phrase “woe is me”? Never I’d wager, unless you ever say “woe betide you” which is an even weirder saying. This phrase first appears in Job which is one of the oldest books in the Old Testament. It’s in Wycliffe’s translation of 1382:
“If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction”.
It’s also used in other parts of the Bible too:
Psalms 120:5: “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!”
Isaiah 6:5: “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts”.
That’ll do for now, I could go on. I find it constantly fascinating that some of the phrases we use today started out in Greece and the Middle East and were then translated into Old English and used by play-writes of the time, who in turn inspired later translators of the Bible, giving us yet more phrases. The English language really is a wonderful mongrel.
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