Word study

Arrow

3 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: arrows, arrow. 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 “arrow” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חֵץ chêtsarrowtranslated this way 49 times of its 52 uses · Strong’s H2671Noun  ·  Translated: arrows 34, arrow 12, like arrows 2, make my arrows 1

    Numbers 24:8 God brought him out of Egypt with strength like a wild ox, to devour hostile nations and crush their bones, to pierce them with arrows.

    Deuteronomy 32:23 I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them.

    Full study and all 49 verses →
  • חִצִּי chitstsîarrowtranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H2678Noun  ·  Translated: arrow 4

    1 Samuel 20:36 He said to the boy, “Run and find the arrows I shoot.” And as the boy ran, Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him.

    2 Kings 9:24 Then Jehu drew his bow and shot Joram between the shoulders. The arrow pierced his heart, and he slumped down in his chariot.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • קֶשֶׁת qeshethbowtranslated this way 2 times of its 65 uses · Strong’s H7198Noun  ·  Translated: bow 45, bows 11, rainbow 3, arrow 2

    Job 20:24 Though he flees from an iron weapon, a bronze-tipped arrow will pierce him.

    Job 41:28 No arrow can make him flee; slingstones become like chaff to him.

    Full study and all 64 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.

What the Bible says about arrow: passages by topic →

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.