Word study

Abuse

2 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: abuse, abused, abusing. 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 “abuse” 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)

  • עָלַל âlalact severelytranslated this way 2 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H5953Verb  ·  Translated: torture 2

    Judges 19:25 But the men would not listen to him. So the Levite took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.

    Jeremiah 38:19 But King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have deserted to the Chaldeans, for the Chaldeans may deliver me into their hands to abuse me.”

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • עָנָה ânâhbe occupied, busied withtranslated this way 1 time of its 80 uses · Strong’s H6031Verb  ·  Translated: afflicted 15, humble 12, oppress 5, afflict 4

    Judges 20:5 And during the night, the men of Gibeah rose up against me and surrounded the house. They intended to kill me, but they abused my concubine, and she died.

    Full study and all 78 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • βλασφημέω blasphēméōI speak evil against, blasphemetranslated this way 4 times of its 34 uses · Strong’s G987Verb  ·  Translated: blaspheme 4, slander 4, blasphemed 3, heaped abuse 3

    Matthew 27:39 And those who passed by heaped abuse on Him, shaking their heads

    Mark 15:29 And those who passed by heaped abuse on Him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days,

    Full study and all 34 verses →
  • λοιδορέω loidoréōI revile, abusetranslated this way 1 time of its 4 uses · Strong’s G3058Verb  ·  Translated: heaped insults 1, dare you insult 1, vilified 1, heaped abuse 1

    1 Peter 2:23 When they heaped abuse on Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats, but entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • ἀδικέω adikéōI act unjustly towardstranslated this way 1 time of its 28 uses · Strong’s G91Verb  ·  Translated: harm 7, wrong 4, wronged 3, harmed 2

    Acts 7:27 But the man who was abusing his neighbor pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?

    Full study and all 24 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. 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.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. 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.