Word study

Bronze

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • נְחֹשֶׁת nechôshethcopper, bronzetranslated this way 131 times of its 139 uses · Strong’s H5178Noun  ·  Translated: bronze 123, bronze shackles 5, copper 4

    Genesis 4:22 And Zillah gave birth to Tubal-cain, a forger of every implement of bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

    Exodus 25:3 This is the offering you are to accept from them: gold, silver, and bronze;

    Full study and all 119 verses →
  • נְחָשׁ nechâshcopper, bronzetranslated this way 9 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H5174Noun  ·  Translated: bronze 8, bronze around 1

    Daniel 2:32 The head of the statue was pure gold, its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze,

    Daniel 2:35 Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were shattered and became like chaff on the threshing floor in summer. The wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that had struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

    Full study and all 9 verses →
  • נְחוּשָׁה nechûshâhcopper, bronzetranslated this way 8 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H5154Noun  ·  Translated: bronze 7, like bronze 1, bronze-tipped 1, copper 1

    Leviticus 26:19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze,

    2 Samuel 22:35 He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

    Full study and all 10 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • χαλκολίβανον chalkolíbanonorichalcum, or frankincense of a yellow colortranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G5474Noun  ·  Translated: polished bronze 2

    Revelation 1:15 His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters.

    Revelation 2:18 To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like a blazing fire and whose feet are like polished bronze.

    Full study and all 2 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.