Word study
Better
4 Hebrew and 4 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “better”. 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 “better” 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)
- טוֹב ṭôbpleasant, agreeable, goodtranslated this way 73 times of its 538 uses · Strong’s H2896Adjective · Translated: good 249, better 72, prosperity 19, good things 12Full study and all 499 verses →
Genesis 29:19 Laban replied, “Better that I give her to you than to another. Stay here with me.”
Exodus 14:12 Did we not say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
- טוֹב ṭôbpleasing, goodtranslated this way 3 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H2895Verb · Translated: merry 3, done well 3, better 2, good 2Full study and all 19 verses →
Numbers 11:18 And say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, because you have cried out in the hearing of the LORD, saying: ‘Who will feed us meat? For we were better off in Egypt!’ Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat.
Judges 11:25 Are you now so much better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever contend with Israel or fight against them?
- דּוֹד dôdbeloved, lovetranslated this way 2 times of its 57 uses · Strong’s H1730Noun · Translated: beloved 27, uncle 11, love 8, belong to my beloved 2Full study and all 50 verses →
Song of Solomon 5:9 How is your beloved better than others, O most beautiful among women? How is your beloved better than another, that you charge us so?
- יָטַב yâṭabbe good, well, glad, pleasingtranslated this way 2 times of its 110 uses · Strong’s H3190Verb · Translated: good 14, well 8, pleased 8, go well 6Full study and all 106 verses →
Hosea 10:1 Israel was a luxuriant vine, yielding fruit for himself. The more his fruit increased, the more he increased the altars. The better his land produced, the better he made the sacred pillars.
Nahum 3:8 Are you better than Thebes, stationed by the Nile with water around her, whose rampart was the sea, whose wall was the water?
Greek words (New Testament)
- κρείττων kreíttōnstronger, more excellenttranslated this way 13 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s G2909Adjective · Translated: better 12, superior 1, greater 1, better word 1Full study and all 14 verses →
1 Corinthians 7:9 But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Hebrews 7:19 (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.
- καλός kalósbeautiful, good, worthytranslated this way 9 times of its 99 uses · Strong’s G2570Adjective · Translated: good 64, better 9, right 5, noble 4Full study and all 89 verses →
Matthew 18:8 If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands and two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire.
Mark 9:42 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea.
- συμφέρω symphérōI collect, am profitable totranslated this way 6 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s G4851Verb · Translated: better 6, good 3, helpful 2, beneficial 2Full study and all 17 verses →
Matthew 5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
John 11:50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
- κρεῖσσον kreîssonstronger, more excellenttranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G2908Adjective · Translated: better 2, even better 1, good 1Full study and all 4 verses →
1 Corinthians 7:38 So then, he who marries the virgin does well, but he who does not marry her does even better.
Philippians 1:23 I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better indeed.
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.