Word study

Blaspheme

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: blasphemed, blaspheme, blasphemes, blaspheming. 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 “blaspheme” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • גָּדַף gâdaphrevile, blasphemetranslated this way 6 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H1442Verb  ·  Translated: blasphemed 5, blasphemes 1, reviler 1

    Numbers 15:30 But the person who sins defiantly, whether a native or foreigner, blasphemes the LORD. That person shall be cut off from among his people.

    2 Kings 19:6 who replied, “Tell your master that this is what the LORD says: ‘Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • נָקַב nâqabpiercetranslated this way 3 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H5344Verb  ·  Translated: designated 6, pierce 4, pierced 2

    Leviticus 24:11 The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse. So they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)

    Leviticus 24:16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD must surely be put to death; the whole assembly must surely stone him, whether he is a foreign resident or native; if he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • קָלַל qâlalbe slight, swift, triflingtranslated this way 2 times of its 82 uses · Strong’s H7043Verb  ·  Translated: curse 15, cursed 8, curses 5, swifter 5

    Exodus 22:28 You must not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people.

    1 Samuel 3:13 I told him that I would judge his house forever for the iniquity of which he knows, because his sons blasphemed God and he did not restrain them.

    Full study and all 79 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • βλασφημέω blasphēméōI speak evil against, blasphemetranslated this way 11 times of its 34 uses · Strong’s G987Verb  ·  Translated: blaspheme 4, slander 4, blasphemed 3, heaped abuse 3

    Matthew 9:3 On seeing this, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming!”

    Mark 2:7 “Why does this man speak like this? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

    Full study and all 34 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.