Bible Lexicons

Bullinger's Figures of Speech Used in the BibleBullinger's Figures of Speech

Oeonismos; or Wishing

An Expression of Feeling by way of wishing or hoping for a thing

Œ´-ô-nis´-mos. Greek, οἰωνισμός, a divining by the flight of birds, divination. Then, because these diviners generally saw what they wished to see, it came to mean a looking for, especially in the sense of a foreboding.

See Deuteronomy 32:29 : "O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!"

Psalms 55:6. (7).-"Oh! that I had wings like a dove!"

Psalms 81:13 (14).-"Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!" etc.

Isaiah 48:18.-"O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea."

Isaiah 64:1 (63:19).-"Oh that thou would rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence." See also under Euche.

There are many examples, which the Bible student will call to mind or search out for himself.

Galatians 5:12.-"I would that they were even cut off which trouble you."