Word study

Air

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

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

  • שָׁמַיִם shâmayimsky, alofttranslated this way 43 times of its 410 uses · Strong’s H8064Noun  ·  Translated: heaven 163, heavens 141, air 43, sky 32

    Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”

    Exodus 9:8 Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the furnace; in the sight of Pharaoh, Moses is to toss it into the air.

    Full study and all 392 verses →
  • שָׁמַיִן shâmayinheavenstranslated this way 3 times of its 37 uses · Strong’s H8065Noun  ·  Translated: heaven 28, heavens 3, air 3, sky 3

    Daniel 2:38 Wherever the sons of men or beasts of the field or birds of the air dwell, He has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

    Daniel 4:12 Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit was abundant, and upon it was food for all. Under it the beasts of the field found shelter, in its branches the birds of the air nested, and from it every creature was fed.

    Full study and all 35 verses →
  • רוּחַ rûachbreath, wind, spirittranslated this way 2 times of its 368 uses · Strong’s H7307Noun  ·  Translated: spirit 189, wind 83, breath 31, winds 8

    Job 41:16 One scale is so near to another that no air can pass between them.

    Jeremiah 14:6 Wild donkeys stand on barren heights; they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail for lack of pasture.”

    Full study and all 343 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • οὐρανός ouranósthe sky, the heaventranslated this way 9 times of its 272 uses · Strong’s G3772Noun  ·  Translated: heaven 227, heavens 18, sky 15, air 9

    Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

    Mark 4:32 But after it is planted, it grows to be the largest of all garden plants and puts forth great branches, so that the birds of the air nest in its shade.”

    Full study and all 255 verses →
  • ἀήρ aḗrairtranslated this way 7 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s G109Noun  ·  Translated: air 7

    Acts 22:23 As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air,

    1 Corinthians 9:26 Therefore I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight like I am beating the air.

    Full study and all 7 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.