# vale of tears

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/vale-of-tears
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

The world, a place where difficulties and the sorrows of life are felt, especially (Christianity) as a place to be left behind when one dies and goes to heaven.

## Examples

- He often describes this world as a vale of tears.
- The poet wrote about finding beauty and hope even while living in this difficult vale of tears.
- Throughout the long centuries of hardship, many people viewed their earthly existence as nothing more than a temporary, sorrowful vale of tears.

## Origin

Calque of Latin lacrimārum vallis from the “Salve Regina” (a hymn to the Virgin Mary), based on Hebrew עמק הבכא (ʿēmeq habbāḵāʾ) from Psalm 84:6 of the Bible. The Hebrew term may mean “valley of the baka tree”, a tree of uncertain species (compare 2 Samuel 5:23–24 where baka is used to refer to a tree, and is often translated into English as “balsam tree”, “mulberry tree”, or “poplar tree”), but ancient Greek translations assumed the word intended was בָּכָה (bakhá, “to cry, weep”) and so rendered the term as “valley of weeping”, which was then used in Latin and English translations. See, for example, the Douay–Rheims Bible (1610) where the verse is numbered as Psalm 83:6. (disputed)

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