A noun meaning illness, faintness, or a state of physical languishing and decline. It describes the weakness that comes from disease, grief, or extreme distress. The word appears in prophetic and wisdom literature as a metaphor for spiritual and national decline.
Physical illness in Hebrew thought was never purely biological — it was embedded in a world where bodies, souls, and covenant relationships were intertwined. Devay captures a state of comprehensive weakness — the person who is faint, declining, unable to stand upright. Isaiah's famous description of sinful humanity begins with this imagery: the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint, the body covered in wounds. The good news is that the Great Physician comes to the sick, and by his wounds we are healed.