Word study

Bribe

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: bribe, bribes, bribed. 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 “bribe” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שַׁחַד shachadpresenttranslated this way 17 times of its 22 uses · Strong’s H7810Noun  ·  Translated: bribe 13, bribes 4, gift 2, bribery 1

    Exodus 23:8 Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.

    Deuteronomy 10:17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God, showing no partiality and accepting no bribe.

    Full study and all 20 verses →
  • כֹּפֶר kôpherthe price of a life, ransomtranslated this way 3 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s H3724Noun  ·  Translated: ransom 9, bribe 2

    1 Samuel 12:3 Here I am. Bear witness against me before the LORD and before His anointed: Whose ox or donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated or oppressed? From whose hand have I accepted a bribe and closed my eyes? Tell me, and I will restore it to you.”

    Job 36:18 Be careful that no one lures you with riches; do not let a large bribe lead you astray.

    Full study and all 17 verses →
  • שָׁחַד shâchadgive a present, bribetranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H7809Verb  ·  Translated: offer me a bribe 1, bribed 1

    Job 6:22 Have I ever said, ‘Give me something; offer me a bribe from your wealth;

    Ezekiel 16:33 Men give gifts to all their prostitutes, but you gave gifts to all your lovers. You bribed them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors.

    Full study and all 2 verses →
  • מַתָּנָה mattânâhgifttranslated this way 2 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H4979Noun  ·  Translated: gifts 8, gift 5, appear with a gift 1, bribes 1

    Proverbs 15:27 He who is greedy for unjust gain brings trouble on his household, but he who hates bribes will live.

    Ecclesiastes 7:7 Surely extortion turns a wise man into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

    Full study and all 16 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.