Bestead

Bestead is an archaic English term appearing once in the Authorized Version of Isaiah 8:21, where it translates a Hebrew root meaning to oppress or to be in circumstances of hardship. The verse describes those who are hardly bestead and hungry—that is, sorely pressed and famished—as they pass through the land in the darkness of divine judgment. It occurs within Isaiah's oracle of impending Assyrian devastation that contrasts the darkness of unbelief with the light promised in the Messianic vision that follows.

The word bestead (past participle of bestead, meaning placed in a particular situation, from Old English stede, a place) passed out of common English usage by the early modern period, making it one of the more opaque terms in the King James translation. The Revised Version replaces it with sore distressed, and most modern translations simply render it as hard pressed or distressed. Its occurrence in the darkness oracle of Isaiah 8 places it within one of the most theologically charged passages in the prophetic literature, immediately preceding the announcement of the child born in Galilee.