Word study
Canopy
4 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: canopy, canopies. 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 “canopy” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- עָב âbprojecting rooftranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H5646Noun · Translated: canopy 2, canopies 1Full study and all 3 verses →
1 Kings 7:6 Solomon made his colonnade fifty cubits long and thirty cubits wide, with a portico in front of it and a canopy with pillars in front of the portico.
Ezekiel 41:25 Cherubim and palm trees like those on the walls were carved on the doors of the outer sanctuary, and there was a wooden canopy outside, on the front of the portico.
- סֻכָּה sukkâhthicket, boothtranslated this way 2 times of its 31 uses · Strong’s H5521Noun · Translated: Tabernacles 9, booths 7, tents 3, shelter 3Full study and all 29 verses →
2 Samuel 22:12 He made darkness a canopy around Him, a gathering of water and thick clouds.
Psalm 18:11 He made darkness His hiding place, and storm clouds a canopy around Him.
- מֵיסָךְ mêsâkporticotranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H4329Noun · Translated: canopy 1Full study and its 1 verse →
2 Kings 16:18 And on account of the king of Assyria, he removed the Sabbath canopy they had built in the temple and closed the royal entryway outside the house of the LORD.
- חֻפָּה chuppâhcanopy, chambertranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H2646Noun · Translated: chamber 2, canopy 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Isaiah 4:5 Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud of smoke by day and a glowing flame of fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a canopy,
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.