Word study

Beheaded

1 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • סוּר sûrturn asidetranslated this way 1 time of its 294 uses · Strong’s H5493Verb  ·  Translated: removed 46, remove 38, turn away 23, turn aside 16

    2 Samuel 4:7 They had entered the house while Ish-bosheth was lying on his bed, and having stabbed and killed him, they beheaded him, took his head, and traveled all night by way of the Arabah.

    Full study and all 277 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀποκεφαλίζω apokephalízōI beheadtranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G607Verb  ·  Translated: beheaded 4

    Matthew 14:10 and sent to have John beheaded in the prison.

    Mark 6:16 But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has risen from the dead!”

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • πελεκίζω pelekízōI beheadtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G3990Verb  ·  Translated: beheaded 1

    Revelation 20:4 Then I saw the thrones, and those seated on them had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or hands. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
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.