Word study

Blood

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • דָּם dâmbloodtranslated this way 284 times of its 347 uses · Strong’s H1818Noun  ·  Translated: blood 267, bloodshed 35, bloodguilt 5, blood still 4

    Genesis 4:10 “What have you done?” replied the LORD. “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.

    Exodus 4:9 But if they do not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. Then the water you take from the Nile will become blood on the ground.”

    Full study and all 292 verses →
  • עֶצֶם etsembone, substance, selftranslated this way 6 times of its 115 uses · Strong’s H6106Noun  ·  Translated: bones 83, very 7, bone 6, blood 6

    Genesis 29:14 Then Laban declared, “You are indeed my own flesh and blood.” After Jacob had stayed with him a month,

    Judges 9:2 “Please ask all the leaders of Shechem, ‘Is it better for you that seventy men, all the sons of Jerubbaal, rule over you, or just one man?’ Remember that I am your own flesh and blood.”

    Full study and all 101 verses →
  • נֵצַח Nêtsachjuicetranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H5332Noun  ·  Translated: blood 2

    Isaiah 63:3 “I have trodden the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My fury; their blood spattered My garments, and all My clothes were stained.

    Isaiah 63:6 I trampled the nations in My anger; in My wrath I made them drunk and poured out their blood on the ground.”

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • αἷμα haîmabloodtranslated this way 91 times of its 96 uses · Strong’s G129Noun  ·  Translated: blood 89, bleeding 4, shedding your blood 1, blood red 1

    Matthew 16:17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father in heaven.

    Mark 14:24 He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

    Full study and all 90 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 blood: 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.