Word study

Beloved

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “beloved”. 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 “beloved” 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)

  • דּוֹד dôdbeloved, lovetranslated this way 29 times of its 57 uses · Strong’s H1730Noun  ·  Translated: beloved 27, uncle 11, love 8, belong to my beloved 2

    Song of Solomon 1:13 My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts.

    Song of Solomon 1:14 My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En-gedi.

    Full study and all 50 verses →
  • אָהַב âhablovetranslated this way 8 times of its 210 uses · Strong’s H157Verb  ·  Translated: love 87, loved 36, loves 30, lovers 16

    Deuteronomy 21:15 If a man has two wives, one beloved and the other unloved, and both bear him sons, but the unloved wife has the firstborn son,

    2 Samuel 1:23 Saul and Jonathan, beloved and delightful in life, were not divided in death. They were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions.

    Full study and all 197 verses →
  • יְדִיד yedîdbelovedtranslated this way 7 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H3039Noun  ·  Translated: beloved 7, love 1, lovely 1

    Deuteronomy 33:12 Concerning Benjamin he said: “May the beloved of the LORD rest secure in Him; God shields him all day long, and upon His shoulders he rests.”

    Psalm 60:5 Respond and save us with Your right hand, that Your beloved may be delivered.

    Full study and all 8 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀγαπητός agapētósloved, belovedtranslated this way 58 times of its 61 uses · Strong’s G27Adjective  ·  Translated: beloved 58, loved 2, love 1

    Matthew 3:17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!”

    Mark 1:11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”

    Full study and all 60 verses →
  • ἀγαπάω agapáōI lovetranslated this way 6 times of its 141 uses · Strong’s G25Verb  ·  Translated: love 78, loved 35, loves 20, beloved 6

    Romans 9:25 As He says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘My People’ who are not My people, and I will call her ‘My Beloved’ who is not My beloved,”

    Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.

    Full study and all 108 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.