Word study

Brood

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • תַּרְבּוּת tarbûthincrease, broodtranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H8635Noun  ·  Translated: you 1, brood 1

    Numbers 32:14 Now behold, you, a brood of sinners, have risen up in place of your fathers to further stoke the burning anger of the LORD against Israel.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • בֵּן bênsontranslated this way 1 time of its 4,587 uses · Strong’s H1121Noun  ·  Translated: son 1,843, sons 892, Israelites 422, descendants 358Full study and all 3,473 verses →
  • זֶרַע zerasowing, seed, offspringtranslated this way 1 time of its 220 uses · Strong’s H2233Noun  ·  Translated: descendants 78, offspring 45, seed 34, children 10

    Isaiah 1:4 Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who act corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.

    Full study and all 201 verses →
  • צֵל tsêlshadowtranslated this way 1 time of its 48 uses · Strong’s H6738Noun  ·  Translated: shade 18, shadow 17, like a shadow 3, protection 2

    Isaiah 34:15 There the owl will make her nest; she will lay and hatch her eggs and gather her brood under her shadow. Even there the birds of prey will gather, each with its mate.

    Full study and all 47 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • γέννημα génnēmaoffspring, child, fruittranslated this way 4 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s G1081Noun  ·  Translated: brood 4, fruit 3, harvest 1

    Matthew 3:7 But when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his place of baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

    Luke 3:7 Then John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

    Full study and all 8 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.