Word study

Barren

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “barren”. 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 “barren” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עָקָר âqârbarrentranslated this way 11 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s H6135Adjective  ·  Translated: barren 7, barren woman 3, barren man 1, woman 1

    Genesis 11:30 But Sarai was barren; she had no children.

    Exodus 23:26 No woman in your land will miscarry or be barren; I will fulfill the number of your days.

    Full study and all 11 verses →
  • שְׁפִי shephîbareness, smooth or bare (treeless) heighttranslated this way 9 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H8205Noun  ·  Translated: barren heights 7, barren height 1, protrude 1, barren hill 1

    Numbers 23:3 “Stay here by your burnt offering while I am gone,” Balaam said to Balak. “Perhaps the LORD will meet with me. And whatever He reveals to me, I will tell you.” So Balaam went off to a barren height,

    Isaiah 41:18 I will open rivers on the barren heights, and fountains in the middle of the valleys. I will turn the desert into a pool of water, and the dry land into flowing springs.

    Full study and all 10 verses →
  • גַּלְמוּד galmûdhard, barrentranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H1565Adjective  ·  Translated: barren 3, Gaunt 1

    Job 3:7 Behold, may that night be barren; may no joyful voice come into it.

    Isaiah 49:21 Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. So who has reared them? Look, I was left all alone, so where did they come from?’”

    Full study and all 4 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • στείρος steírosbarrentranslated this way 5 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s G4723Adjective  ·  Translated: barren 4, barren woman 1

    Luke 1:7 But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well along in years.

    Galatians 4:27 For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have never travailed; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”

    Full study and all 5 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.