Word study

Ascent

3 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מַעֲלָה maălâhwhat comes uptranslated this way 15 times of its 44 uses · Strong’s H4609Noun  ·  Translated: steps 20, ascents 15, stairway 2

    Psalm 120:1 A song of ascents. In my distress I cried to the LORD, and He answered me.

    Psalm 121:1 A song of ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?

    Full study and all 39 verses →
  • מַעֲלֶה maălehascenttranslated this way 8 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s H4608Noun  ·  Translated: Ascent 7, led 3

    Joshua 10:10 And the LORD threw them into confusion before Israel, who defeated them in a great slaughter at Gibeon, pursued them along the ascent to Beth-horon, and struck them down as far as Azekah and Makkedah.

    Judges 8:13 After this, Gideon son of Joash returned from the battle along the Ascent of Heres.

    Full study and all 15 verses →
  • מַעֲלֵה עַקְרַבִּים Maălêh AqrabbîmSteep of Scorpionstranslated this way 3 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H4610Noun  ·  Translated: Ascent 3, Akrabbim 3

    Numbers 34:4 cross south of the Ascent of Akrabbim, continue to Zin, and go south of Kadesh-barnea. Then it will go on to Hazar-addar and proceed to Azmon,

    Joshua 15:3 proceeded south of the Ascent of Akrabbim, continued on to Zin, went over to the south of Kadesh-barnea, ran past Hezron up to Addar, and curved toward Karka.

    Full study and all 3 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.