Bible Dictionary
VEX, VEXATION
To vex is to trouble, distress, afflict, or harass severely. In Scripture, “vexation” may describe anguish, terror, oppression, or deep disturbance.
Definition
To vex is to trouble, distress, afflict, harass, or cause severe disturbance. Vexation may denote distress, anguish, terror, discomfiture, or other intense trouble rather than the comparatively mild irritation often meant in modern speech.
Biblical Usage
Biblical translations use vex for troubling, distressing, afflicting, and opposing. Revised versions commonly render the term with more specific words such as troubled, distressed, suffered grievously, afflicted, terror, anguish, or discomfiture.
Historical Background
The English word originally suggested shaking or tossing during carrying, but its biblical usage became much more intensive. It represents many different Hebrew and Greek words.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>veks, vek-sa'-shun: "Vex," meaning originally to shake or toss in carrying, has a much more intensive meaning in Scripture than in common modern usage. It represents over a score of Hebrew and Greek words, most of them translated by this word only once, and many of them changed in the Revised Version (British and American) into other forms. Thus bahel in Ps 6:2,3,10. is in the American Standard Revised Version "troubled" (in Ps 2:5, the Revised Version margin. "trouble"); tsarar in Ne 9:27 is in the Revised Version (British and American) "distressed";. pascho in Mt 17:15 is "suffereth grievously"; kakoo in Ac 12:1 is "afflict," etc. So "vexation only" in Isa 28:19 is in the Revised Version (British and American) "nought but terror," and there are other changes of this word (compare De 28:20, "discomfiture"; Isa 9:1, "in anguish"). On the other hand, the Revised Version (British and American) has "vex" for "distress" (De 2:9,19); "they that vex" for "the adversaries of" (Isa 11:13); "vexeth himself" for "meddleth" (Pr 26:17), etc.</p><p>W. L. Walker</p>