Word study
Churn
8 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: churning, churn. 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 “churn” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- חָמַר châmarferment, boil or foam uptranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H2560Verb · Translated: churning 2, coated 1, red 1, foam 1Full study and all 6 verses →
Lamentations 1:20 See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.
Lamentations 2:11 My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
- גָּעַשׁ gâashshake, quaketranslated this way 2 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H1607Verb · Translated: shook 2, shaken 2, churn 2, convulse 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Jeremiah 46:7 Who is this, rising like the Nile, like rivers whose waters churn?
Jeremiah 46:8 Egypt rises like the Nile, and its waters churn like rivers, boasting, ‘I will rise and cover the earth; I will destroy the cities and their people.’
- רָתַח râthachboiltranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H7570Verb · Translated: churning 1, seethe 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Job 30:27 I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me.
- מִיץ mîtssqueezing, pressing, wringingtranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H4330Noun · Translated: churning 1, twisting 1, stirring 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Proverbs 30:33 For as the churning of milk yields butter, and the twisting of the nose draws blood, so the stirring of anger brings forth strife.”
- דָּלַח dâlachmake turbidtranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H1804Verb · Translated: churning 1, muddy 1, disturb 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Ezekiel 32:2 “Son of man, take up a lament for Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: ‘You are like a lion among the nations; you are like a monster in the seas. You thrash about in your rivers, churning up the waters with your feet and muddying the streams.’
- גִּיחַ gîachrushtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H1519Verb · Translated: churning 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Daniel 7:2 Daniel declared: “In my vision in the night I looked, and suddenly the four winds of heaven were churning up the great sea.
- חֹמֶר chômercement, mortar, claytranslated this way 1 time of its 30 uses · Strong’s H2563Noun · Translated: homer 10, clay 7, like clay 5, mortar 3Full study and all 26 verses →
Habakkuk 3:15 You trampled the sea with Your horses, churning the great waters.
- גָּרַשׁ gârashdrive out, cast outtranslated this way 1 time of its 46 uses · Strong’s H1644Verb · Translated: drive 14, drove 7, banished 4, driven 3Full study and all 45 verses →
Isaiah 57:20 But the wicked are like the storm-tossed sea, for it cannot be still, and its waves churn up mire and muck.
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.