Word study

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4 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • נֵס nêsstandard, ensign, signal, signtranslated this way 14 times of its 21 uses · Strong’s H5251Noun  ·  Translated: banner 13, pole 2, signal flag 2

    Exodus 17:15 And Moses built an altar and named it The LORD Is My Banner.

    Psalm 60:4 You have raised a banner for those who fear You, that they may flee the bow. Selah

    Full study and all 21 verses →
  • דָּגַל dâgallook, baholdtranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H1713Verb  ·  Translated: raise a banner 1, outstanding 1, troops with banners 1, stars in procession 1

    Psalm 20:5 May we shout for joy at your victory and raise a banner in the name of our God. May the LORD grant all your petitions.

    Song of Solomon 6:4 You are as beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, as lovely as Jerusalem, as majestic as troops with banners.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • אוֹת ôthsigntranslated this way 2 times of its 78 uses · Strong’s H226Noun  ·  Translated: sign 40, signs 27, miraculous signs 2, banners 2

    Numbers 2:2 “The Israelites are to camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance from it, each man under his standard, with the banners of his family.

    Psalm 74:4 Your foes have roared within Your meeting place; they have unfurled their banners as signs,

    Full study and all 77 verses →
  • דֶּגֶל degelstandard, bannertranslated this way 1 time of its 14 uses · Strong’s H1714Noun  ·  Translated: standard 11, standards 2, banner 1

    Song of Solomon 2:4 He has brought me to the house of wine, and his banner over me is love.

    Full study and all 14 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 banner: 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.