Word study
Bondage
4 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “bondage”. 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 “bondage” 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)
- עֲבֹדָה ăbôdâhlabour, servicetranslated this way 3 times of its 127 uses · Strong’s H5656Noun · Translated: service 56, work 25, labor 8, task 5Full study and all 112 verses →
Exodus 2:23 After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.
Exodus 6:6 Therefore tell the Israelites: ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
- עַבְדוּת abdûthservitude, bondagetranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H5659Noun · Translated: bondage 2, Even in our bondage 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Ezra 9:8 But now, for a brief moment, grace has come from the LORD our God to preserve for us a remnant and to give us a stake in His holy place. Even in our bondage, our God has given us new life and light to our eyes.
Nehemiah 9:17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them.
- עָבַד âbadwork, servetranslated this way 1 time of its 286 uses · Strong’s H5647Verb · Translated: serve 110, served 44, worship 32, work 9Full study and all 259 verses →
Jeremiah 34:10 So all the officials and all the people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their menservants and maidservants and no longer hold them in bondage. They obeyed and released them,
- אָסַר âsartie, bind, imprisontranslated this way 1 time of its 66 uses · Strong’s H631Verb · Translated: bound 16, tied 5, prisoners 4, confined 3Full study and all 62 verses →
Hosea 10:10 I will chasten them when I please; nations will be gathered against them to put them in bondage for their double transgression.
Greek words (New Testament)
- δεσμόν desmóna bond, chaintranslated this way 1 time of its 17 uses · Strong’s G1199Noun · Translated: chains 13, imprisonment 2, bondage 1, chained 1Full study and all 17 verses →
Luke 13:16 Then should not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be released from her bondage on the Sabbath day?”
- δουλεία douleíaslavery, bondagetranslated this way 1 time of its 5 uses · Strong’s G1397Noun · Translated: slavery 4, bondage 1Full study and all 5 verses →
Romans 8:21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
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.
What the Bible says about bondage: 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.