Word study
Chaff
5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “chaff”. 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 “chaff” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- מֹץ môtschafftranslated this way 8 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H4671Noun · Translated: like chaff 6, chaff 2Full study and all 8 verses →
Job 21:18 Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?
Psalm 1:4 Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.
- קַשׁ qashstubble, chafftranslated this way 5 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H7179Noun · Translated: stubble 5, like stubble 4, like chaff 3, chaff 2Full study and all 16 verses →
Job 13:25 Would You frighten a windblown leaf? Would You chase after dry chaff?
Psalm 83:13 Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind.
- חָשַׁשׁ châshashchafftranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2842Noun · Translated: dry grass 1, chaff 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Isaiah 33:11 You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will consume you.
- עוּר ûrchafftranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H5784Noun · Translated: like chaff 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Daniel 2:35 Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were shattered and became like chaff on the threshing floor in summer. The wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that had struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
- מַפָּל mappâlrefuse, hanging partstranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H4651Noun · Translated: folds 1, even the chaff 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Amos 8:6 Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”
Greek words (New Testament)
- ἄχυρον áchyronchafftranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G892Noun · Translated: chaff 2Full study and all 2 verses →
Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Luke 3:17 His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
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.
What the Bible says about chaff: passages by topic →
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.