Word study
Beat
4 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: beat, beating, beatings. 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 “beat” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- נָכָה nâkâhsmitetranslated this way 12 times of its 496 uses · Strong’s H5221Verb · Translated: struck 145, strike 59, put 31, defeated 28Full study and all 460 verses →
Exodus 2:11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.
Numbers 22:23 When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the path and went into a field. So Balaam beat her to return her to the path.
- כָּתַת kâthathbeat, crush by beatingtranslated this way 3 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s H3807Verb · Translated: crushed 4, beat 3, routed 2, smashed to pieces 2Full study and all 17 verses →
Isaiah 2:4 Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war.
Joel 3:10 Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong!’
- מַהֲלֻמָּה mahălummâhblowtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H4112Noun · Translated: beating 1, beatings 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Proverbs 18:6 A fool’s lips bring him strife, and his mouth invites a beating.
Proverbs 19:29 Judgments are prepared for mockers, and beatings for the backs of fools.
- חָבַט châbaṭbeat off, beat outtranslated this way 2 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H2251Verb · Translated: beat 2, threshing 1, thresh 1, beaten 1Full study and all 5 verses →
Deuteronomy 24:20 When you beat the olives from your trees, you must not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.
Ruth 2:17 So Ruth gathered grain in the field until evening. And when she beat out what she had gleaned, it was about an ephah of barley.
Greek words (New Testament)
- δέρω dérōI flay, flog, scourge, beattranslated this way 9 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s G1194Verb · Translated: beat 8, beaten 3, strike 1, flogged 1Full study and all 15 verses →
Matthew 21:35 But the tenants seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.
Mark 12:3 But they seized the servant, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.
- τύπτω týptōI beat, strike, wound, inflict punishmenttranslated this way 6 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s G5180Verb · Translated: beat 4, struck 2, beating 2, strike 2Full study and all 12 verses →
Matthew 24:49 And he begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.
Luke 12:45 But suppose that servant says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and he begins to beat the menservants and maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk.
- πληγή plēgḗa blow, stripe, woundtranslated this way 2 times of its 20 uses · Strong’s G4127Noun · Translated: plagues 10, beatings 2, plague 2, wound 2Full study and all 20 verses →
2 Corinthians 6:5 in beatings, imprisonments, and riots; in labor, sleepless nights, and hunger;
2 Corinthians 11:23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am speaking as if I were out of my mind.) I am so much more: in harder labor, in more imprisonments, in worse beatings, in frequent danger of death.
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.