Word study
Abandon
5 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: abandoned, abandon, abandons, abandoning. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.
At a glance
How often each original word is translated “abandon” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- עָזַב âzableave, forsake, loosetranslated this way 37 times of its 214 uses · Strong’s H5800Verb · Translated: forsaken 47, forsake 36, leave 23, abandoned 22Full study and all 206 verses →
Leviticus 26:43 For the land will be abandoned by them, and it will enjoy its Sabbaths by lying desolate without them. And they will pay the penalty for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes.
Deuteronomy 29:25 And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.
- נָטַשׁ nâṭashleave, forsake, permittranslated this way 9 times of its 40 uses · Strong’s H5203Verb · Translated: forsake 6, abandoned 5, spread 5, forsaken 4Full study and all 39 verses →
Deuteronomy 32:15 But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked— becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
1 Samuel 12:22 Indeed, for the sake of His great name, the LORD will not abandon His people, because He was pleased to make you His own.
- רָפָה râphâhsink, relaxtranslated this way 3 times of its 44 uses · Strong’s H7503Verb · Translated: leave 4, abandon 3, go 3, Withdraw 2Full study and all 43 verses →
Deuteronomy 4:31 For the LORD your God is a merciful God; He will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers, which He swore to them by oath.
Joshua 10:6 Then the men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal: “Do not abandon your servants. Come quickly and save us! Help us, because all the kings of the Amorites from the hill country have joined forces against us.”
- יָרַד yâradcome or go down, descendtranslated this way 2 times of its 372 uses · Strong’s H3381Verb · Translated: went 56, go 55, come 35, came 26Full study and all 341 verses →
Judges 4:15 And in front of him the LORD routed with the sword Sisera, all his charioteers, and all his army. Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot.
- לֹא lônottranslated this way 2 times of its 4,657 uses · Strong’s H3808Adverb · Translated: no 309, not 269, never 218, will not 156Full study and all 3,775 verses →
Greek words (New Testament)
- ἀφίημι aphíēmiI send away, release, remit, forgive, permittranslated this way 3 times of its 142 uses · Strong’s G863Verb · Translated: left 36, forgive 22, forgiven 22, let 12Full study and all 130 verses →
John 10:12 The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own. When he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf pounces on them and scatters the flock.
Romans 1:27 Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
- ἐγκαταλείπω enkataleípōI abandon, deserttranslated this way 2 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s G1459Verb · Translated: forsaken 3, deserted 2Full study and all 10 verses →
Acts 2:27 because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay.
Acts 2:31 Foreseeing this, David spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His body see decay.
How to study a word well
- Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
- Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.
Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.