Word study
Childless
4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “childless”. 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 “childless” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- עֲרִירִי ărîrîstrippedtranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H6185Adjective · Translated: childless 4Full study and all 4 verses →
Genesis 15:2 But Abram replied, “O Lord GOD, what can You give me, since I remain childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
Leviticus 20:20 If a man lies with his uncle’s wife, he has uncovered the nakedness of his uncle. They will bear their sin; they shall die childless.
- שָׁכֹל shâkôlbe bereavedtranslated this way 4 times of its 22 uses · Strong’s H7921Verb · Translated: miscarry 3, bereaved 2, childless 2, bereave 2Full study and all 20 verses →
1 Samuel 15:33 But Samuel declared: “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the LORD at Gilgal.
Ezekiel 5:17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.”
- לֹא lônottranslated this way 1 time of its 4,657 uses · Strong’s H3808Adverb · Translated: no 309, not 269, never 218, will not 156Full study and all 3,775 verses →
- שַׁכּוּל shakkûlbereaved, robbed of offspringtranslated this way 1 time of its 7 uses · Strong’s H7909Adjective · Translated: robbed of her cubs 3, lost 2, bereaved 1, childless 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Jeremiah 18:21 Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
Greek words (New Testament)
- ἄτεκνος áteknoschildlesstranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s G815Adjective · Translated: children 1, childless 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Luke 20:29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a wife but died childless.
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.