Word study

Buy

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: buy, bought, buying, buys. 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 “buy” 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)

  • קָנָה qânâhget, acquiretranslated this way 34 times of its 82 uses · Strong’s H7069Verb  ·  Translated: buy 16, bought 13, purchased 7, acquire 6

    Genesis 25:10 This was the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites. Abraham was buried there with his wife Sarah.

    Exodus 15:16 and terror and dread will fall on them. By the power of Your arm they will be as still as a stone until Your people pass by, O LORD, until the people You have bought pass by.

    Full study and all 75 verses →
  • שָׁבַר shâbarbuy graintranslated this way 14 times of its 21 uses · Strong’s H7666Verb  ·  Translated: buy 11, sold grain 2, buy grain 2, sell 2

    Genesis 41:57 And every nation came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth.

    Isaiah 55:1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you without money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost!

    Full study and all 20 verses →
  • לָקַח lâqachtaketranslated this way 2 times of its 938 uses · Strong’s H3947Verb  ·  Translated: take 247, took 245, taken 40, get 26Full study and all 890 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀγοράζω agorázōI buytranslated this way 25 times of its 30 uses · Strong’s G59Verb  ·  Translated: buy 13, bought 9, buying 3, redeemed 2

    Matthew 13:44 The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field.

    Mark 6:36 Dismiss the crowd so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”

    Full study and all 30 verses →
  • κτάομαι ktáomaiI win, get, buy, possesstranslated this way 2 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s G2932Verb  ·  Translated: take along 1, acquire 1, gain 1, bought 1

    Acts 1:18 (Now with the reward for his wickedness Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong and burst open in the middle, and all his intestines spilled out.

    Acts 8:20 But Peter replied, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!

    Full study and all 7 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.