Word study
Circle
6 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: circle, circling, circled. 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 “circle” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- סָבַב sâbabturn about, go around, surroundtranslated this way 4 times of its 153 uses · Strong’s H5437Verb · Translated: turned 16, surrounded 13, surround 10, turn 8Full study and all 144 verses →
Joshua 6:15 Then on the seventh day, they got up at dawn and marched around the city seven times in the same manner. That was the only day they circled the city seven times.
2 Samuel 5:23 So David inquired of the LORD, who answered, “Do not march straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the balsam trees.
- נָקַף nâqaphstrike offtranslated this way 2 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H5362Verb · Translated: surround 3, circling 2, way 2, surrounded 2Full study and all 19 verses →
Joshua 6:3 March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.
Joshua 6:11 So he had the ark of the LORD carried around the city, circling it once. And the people returned to the camp and spent the night there.
- מַעְגָּל magâlentrenchmenttranslated this way 2 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H4570Noun · Translated: paths 5, path 4, ways 2, tracks 2Full study and all 16 verses →
1 Samuel 26:5 Then David set out and went to the place where Saul had camped. He saw the place where Saul and Abner son of Ner, the general of his army, had lain down. Saul was lying inside the inner circle of the camp, with the troops camped around him.
1 Samuel 26:7 That night David and Abishai came to the troops, and Saul was lying there asleep in the inner circle of the camp, with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. And Abner and the troops were lying around him.
- חוּג chûgvaulttranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H2329Noun · Translated: circle 2, vault 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Proverbs 8:27 I was there when He established the heavens, when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,
Isaiah 40:22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
- סָבִיב sâbîbcircuit, round abouttranslated this way 1 time of its 295 uses · Strong’s H5439Adverb · Translated: around 151, side 31, surrounding 29, sides 16Full study and all 268 verses →
Jeremiah 12:9 Is not My inheritance to Me like a speckled bird of prey with other birds of prey circling against her? Go, gather all the beasts of the field; bring them to devour her.
- דּוּר dûrcircle, balltranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H1754Preposition, Article · Translated: ball 1, circle 1, pile the fuel 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Isaiah 29:3 I will camp in a circle around you; I will besiege you with towers and set up siege works against you.
Greek words (New Testament)
- κύκλῳ kýklōia circletranslated this way 1 time of its 8 uses · Strong’s G2945Adverb · Translated: around 4, surrounding 2, circle 1, encircling 1Full study and all 8 verses →
Mark 3:34 Looking at those seated in a circle around Him, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers!
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.