The verb anastenazō describes a deep, audible sigh or groan — the kind that rises from the depths of the spirit. It appears once in the New Testament (Mark 8:12), where Jesus "sighed deeply in his spirit" when Pharisees demanded a sign.
Jesus' deep sigh (anastenazō) before the Pharisees is one of the most revealing emotional moments in the Gospels. This was not a sigh of exasperation from a frustrated teacher — it was the groan of the divine heart confronted with human hardness and unbelief. Mark's Gospel is particularly attentive to Jesus' emotional life: He is moved with compassion, He is indignant, He sighs. This deep sigh anticipates Paul's theology in Romans 8, where the Spirit intercedes for us with "groans that words cannot express" (stenagmois alalētois). The sighing of Jesus and the groaning of the Spirit are expressions of the same divine grief over human bondage and blindness.