Tsar denotes a state of pressing hardship in which people cry out, seek God, or need rescue.

The attested use chiefly marks an oppressive situation of hardship: people are in it when they return and seek God, cry for help, or require deliverance. It can also frame personal anguish, public darkness, and adversity, though the supplied translation does not always isolate the term’s particular English equivalent.

1. Pressing hardship calling for help · dominant

   The masculine singular adjective identifies the condition in which people turn back and seek God in Deuteronomy 4:30 and 2 Chronicles 15:4, and in which a speaker calls and cries to God in 2 Samuel 22:7. In Psalm 107:6 the APB renders the clause "Then they cried to the LORD in their distress," followed by rescue; the same cry-and-deliverance pattern appears in Psalm 107:13, Psalm 107:19, and Psalm 107:28.

   Deuteronomy 4:302 Chronicles 15:42 Samuel 22:7Psalm 107:6Psalm 107:13Psalm 107:28

In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB commonly presents the surrounding clause with "distress," especially where people cry out, seek God, or are saved. In Isaiah 30:20 it instead renders the wider line with "adversity" and "affliction"; Its varying English does not by itself establish separate senses.