Word study
Bury
3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: buried, bury, burying, buries. 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 “bury” 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)
- קָבַר qâbarburytranslated this way 126 times of its 130 uses · Strong’s H6912Verb · Translated: buried 92, bury 27, burying 5Full study and all 122 verses →
Genesis 15:15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.
Numbers 11:34 So they called that place Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
- טָמַן ṭâmanhide, concealtranslated this way 5 times of its 31 uses · Strong’s H2934Verb · Translated: hidden 9, hid 4, hide 4, hiding 2Full study and all 29 verses →
Genesis 35:4 So they gave Jacob all their foreign gods and all their earrings, and Jacob buried them under the oak near Shechem.
Job 40:13 Bury them together in the dust; imprison them in the grave.
- קֶבֶר qebergrave, sepulchretranslated this way 2 times of its 66 uses · Strong’s H6913Noun · Translated: tomb 19, grave 15, graves 13, tombs 8Full study and all 61 verses →
Nehemiah 2:3 and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”
Nehemiah 2:5 and answered the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city where my fathers are buried, so that I may rebuild it.”
Greek words (New Testament)
- θάπτω tháptōI burytranslated this way 11 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s G2290Verb · Translated: buried 7, bury 4Full study and all 11 verses →
Matthew 8:21 Another of His disciples requested, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
Luke 9:59 Then He said to another man, “Follow Me.” The man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
- συνθάπτω syntháptōI bury along withtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G4916Verb · Translated: therefore buried 1, buried 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Romans 6:4 We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.
Colossians 2:12 And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.
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.
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.