The adverb ekh ('how!') serves double duty as an interrogative ('How shall we say...?') and an exclamation of astonishment or grief ('How the mighty have fallen!' 2 Sam 1:19). It is the voice of prophetic lament par excellence: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, and Micah all employ it to open oracles of devastating irony -- 'How you have fallen from heaven, O shining one!' (Isa 14:12). The related form ekhah gives its name to the book of Lamentations. In rhetorical questions it often carries an expostulating force: 'How can I bear this alone?' (Deut 1:12), 'How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?' (Ps 137:4). Spanish como, French comment, and German wie all preserve its interrogative-exclamatory versatility.