a.val marks mourning expressed by people in grief and by lands, places, or communities under devastation.

The term most often describes people mourning over death, loss, or grievous news; it also portrays lands, cities, offerings, and other settings as mourning amid devastation, and in two Hiphil forms it depicts causing such mourning.

1. Personal and communal grief · dominant

   Hithpael forms describe persons or groups grieving over loss or disaster. In Genesis 37:34 the APB renders Jacob's response after putting on sackcloth as mourning for his son many days; in Exodus 33:4 the people mourn after hearing a harsh word, and in 2 Chronicles 35:24 all Judah and Jerusalem mourn for Josiah.

   Genesis 37:34Exodus 33:41 Samuel 15:352 Samuel 13:372 Chronicles 35:24Nehemiah 1:4
2. Lament of land, places, and affected groups · common

   Qal forms extend the expression of mourning to the land and its devastated settings, as the APB renders the land mourning while vegetation withers in Jeremiah 12:4 and the ground mourning after crop failure in Joel 1:10. The same form is used of affected people: in Isaiah 19:8 fishers lament and those working the Nile mourn.

   Hosea 4:3Isaiah 19:8Jeremiah 12:4Jeremiah 14:2Joel 1:10Amos 9:5
3. Causing mourning · rare

   In the two Hiphil occurrences, the subject brings about mourning rather than simply being the mourner. Ezekiel 31:15 has the Lord GOD say that he caused mourning on the day of descent to Sheol, while Lamentations 2:8 says that he made rampart and wall mourn together during destruction.

   Ezekiel 31:15Lamentations 2:8

In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB usually presents the clause with “mourn” or “mourning,” whether the subject is a grieving person, a people, or personified land. In Ezekiel 31:15 and Lamentations 2:8 it instead expresses the Hiphil construction with “caused mourning” and “made... mourn”; these are verse-level renderings, definitions.