Word study

Benjamin

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • בִּנְיָמִין BinyâmînBinjamintranslated this way 123 times of its 139 uses · Strong’s H1144Noun  ·  Translated: Benjamin 116, Benjamites 11, Benjamite 5, Benjamin's 2

    Genesis 35:18 And with her last breath— for she was dying— she named vvv him Ben-oni. But his father called him Benjamin.

    Exodus 1:3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;

    Full study and all 135 verses →
  • יְמִינִי yemînîrighttranslated this way 3 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H3227Noun  ·  Translated: Benjamin 3, south 1, right 1

    1 Samuel 9:1 Now there was a Benjamite, a powerful man, whose name was Kish son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah of Benjamin.

    1 Samuel 9:4 So Saul passed through the hill country of Ephraim and then through the land of Shalishah, but they did not find the donkeys. He and the servant went through the region of Shaalim, but they were not there. Then they went through the land of Benjamin, and still they did not find them.

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • בֵּן bênsontranslated this way 2 times of its 4,587 uses · Strong’s H1121Noun  ·  Translated: son 1,843, sons 892, Israelites 422, descendants 358Full study and all 3,473 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • Βενιαμίν BeniamínBenjamintranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G958Noun  ·  Translated: Benjamin 4

    Acts 13:21 Then the people asked for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years.

    Romans 11:1 I ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

    Full study and all 4 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.

What the Bible says about Benjamin: passages by topic →

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.