Bible Lexicons

οὐαί, an interjection of grief or of denunciation; the Sept. chiefly for הוי and אוי; "Alas! Woe!" with a dat of person added, Matthew 11:21; Matthew 18:7; Matthew 23:13-16, 23, 25, 27, 29; Matthew 24:19; Matthew 26:24; Mark 13:17; Mark 14:21; Luke 6:24-26; Luke 10:13; Luke 11:42-44, 46f, 52; Luke 21:23; Luke 22:22; Jude 1:11; Revelation 12:12 R G L, small edition. (see below) (Numbers 21:29; Isaiah 3:9, and often in the Sept.); thrice repeated, and followed by a dative, Revelation 8:13 R G L WH marginal reading (see below); the dative is omitted in Luke 17:1; twice repeated and followed by a nominative in place of a vocative, Revelation 18:10, 16, 19 (Isaiah 1:24; Isaiah 5:8-22; Habakkuk 2:6, 12, etc.); exceptionally, with an accusative of the person, in Revelation 8:13 T Tr WH text, and L T Tr WH; this accusative, I think, must be regarded either as an accusative of exclamation (cf. Matthiae, § 410), or as an imitation of the construction of the accusative after verbs of injuring (Buttmann, § 131, 14 judges otherwise); with the addition of ἀπό and a genitive of the evil the infliction of which is deplored (cf. Buttmann, 322 (277); Winer's Grammar, 371 (348)), Matthew 18:7; also of ἐκ, Revelation 8:13. As a substantive, ἡ οὐαί (the writer seems to have been led to use the feminine by the similarity of ἡ θλῖψις or ἡ ταλαιπωρία; cf. Winers Grammar, 179 (169)) woe, calamity: Revelation 9:12; Revelation 11:14; δύο οὐαί, Revelation 9:12 (οὐαί ἐπί οὐαί ἔσται, Ezekiel 7:26; οὐαί ἡμᾶς λήψεται Evang. Nicod c. 21 (Pars ii., 5:1 (edited by Tdf.))); so also in the phrase οὐαί μοι ἐστιν, woe is unto me, i. e. divine penalty threatens me, 1 Corinthians 9:16, cf. Hosea 9:12; (Jeremiah 6:4); Epictetus diss. 3, 19, 1 (frequent in ecclesiastical writings).