Word study

Beast

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • בְּהֵמָה behêmâhbeast, animal, cattletranslated this way 67 times of its 186 uses · Strong’s H929Noun  ·  Translated: livestock 45, beast 43, animal 32, animals 21

    Genesis 6:7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth — every man and beast and crawling creature and bird of the air — for I am grieved that I have made them.”

    Exodus 8:17 This they did, and when Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth, gnats came upon man and beast. All the dust of the earth turned into gnats throughout the land of Egypt.

    Full study and all 171 verses →
  • חַי chayalive, livingtranslated this way 47 times of its 485 uses · Strong’s H2416Noun  ·  Translated: life 112, lives 62, living 59, live 53

    Genesis 1:24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

    2 Samuel 21:10 And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest until the rain from heaven poured down on the bodies, she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.

    Full study and all 441 verses →
  • חֵיוָא chêvâbeasttranslated this way 20 times of its 20 uses · Strong’s H2423Noun  ·  Translated: beasts 12, beast 8

    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 19 verses →
  • טְרֵפָה ṭerêphâhanimal torntranslated this way 4 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H2966Noun  ·  Translated: mauled by wild beasts 3

    Genesis 31:39 I did not bring you anything torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for what was stolen by day or night.

    Leviticus 7:24 The fat of an animal found dead or mauled by wild beasts may be used for any other purpose, but you must not eat it.

    Full study and all 9 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • θηρίον thēríona wild beast, animaltranslated this way 39 times of its 44 uses · Strong’s G2342Noun  ·  Translated: beast 36, creature 2, beasts 2

    Acts 11:6 I looked at it closely and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air.

    Titus 1:12 As one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”

    Full study and all 38 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.