Word study

Catch

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: catch, catches, catching. 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 “catch” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • לָכַד lâkadcapture, seize, take (by lot)translated this way 3 times of its 120 uses · Strong’s H3920Verb  ·  Translated: captured 62, capture 12, selected 9, caught 8

    Job 5:13 He catches the wise in their craftiness, and sweeps away the plans of the cunning.

    Jeremiah 5:26 For among My people are wicked men; they watch like fowlers lying in wait; they set a trap to catch men.

    Full study and all 112 verses →
  • נָשַׂג nâsagreach, overtaketranslated this way 2 times of its 47 uses · Strong’s H5381Verb  ·  Translated: overtake 16, overtook 6, afford 6, prospers 3

    Joshua 2:5 At dusk, when the gate was about to close, the men went out, and I do not know which way they went. Pursue them quickly, and you may catch them!”

    Hosea 2:7 She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’

    Full study and all 45 verses →
  • חָטַף châṭaphcatch, seizetranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H2414Verb  ·  Translated: catch 1, seize 1, catches 1

    Judges 21:21 and watch. When you see the daughters of Shiloh come out to perform their dances, each of you is to come out of the vineyards, catch for himself a wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

    Psalm 10:9 He lies in wait like a lion in a thicket; he lurks to seize the oppressed; he catches the lowly in his net.

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἄγρα ágracatching, a catchtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G61Noun  ·  Translated: catch 2

    Luke 5:4 When Jesus had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

    Luke 5:9 For he and his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken,

    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.