Chaim Bentorah: I will get the word woe a little later but first, let's examine this word evil. It is the word ra in Hebrew. Hebrew words are supposed to be three letters minimum, but here we have a word that is only two letters, Resh Ayin. It is a loan word from the Middle Egyptian which is only two letters and just happens to be the name of Egypt's chief God – Ra. The general rule of thumb to get the third letter is to just repeat the last letter. That makes the Hebrew root ra'a.
