Word study
City
9 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: city, cities. 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 “city” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- עִיר îrexcitementtranslated this way 964 times of its 1,034 uses · Strong’s H5892Noun · Translated: city 583, cities 344, towns 21, town 13Full study and all 925 verses →
Genesis 4:17 And Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Then Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch.
Exodus 1:11 So the Egyptians appointed taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. As a result, they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
- קִרְיָה qiryâhtown, citytranslated this way 25 times of its 29 uses · Strong’s H7151Noun · Translated: city 23, town 4, single city 1, cities 1Full study and all 29 verses →
Numbers 21:28 For a fire went out from Heshbon, a blaze from the city of Sihon. It consumed Ar of Moab, the rulers of Arnon’s heights.
Deuteronomy 2:36 From Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the valley, even as far as Gilead, not one city had walls too high for us. The LORD our God gave us all of them.
- שַׁעַר shaargatetranslated this way 11 times of its 362 uses · Strong’s H8179Noun · Translated: gate 195, gates 84, gateway 30, within your gates 15Full study and all 299 verses →
Deuteronomy 25:7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, she is to go to the elders at the city gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel. He is not willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.”
1 Samuel 4:18 As soon as the ark of God was mentioned, Eli fell backward from his chair by the city gate, and being old and heavy, he broke his neck and died. And Eli had judged Israel forty years.
- קִרְיָא qiryâtranslated this way 9 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H7149Noun · Translated: city 8, cities 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Ezra 4:10 and the rest of the peoples whom the great and honorable Ashurbanipal deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and elsewhere west of the Euphrates.
Ezra 4:12 Let it be known to the king that the Jews who came from you to us have returned to Jerusalem and are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. They are restoring its walls and repairing its foundations.
- קֶרֶת qerethtown, citytranslated this way 5 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H7176Noun · Translated: city 5Full study and all 5 verses →
Job 29:7 When I went out to the city gate and took my seat in the public square,
Proverbs 8:3 Beside the gates to the city, at the entrances she cries out:
- הוּא hûhe, shetranslated this way 3 times of its 1,425 uses · Strong’s H1931Pronoun · Translated: he 269, it 151, that 114, on that 87Full study and all 1,320 verses →
- תָּוֶךְ tâvekmidsttranslated this way 3 times of its 379 uses · Strong’s H8432Noun · Translated: among 70, middle 31, within 30, among them 27Full study and all 361 verses →
Ezekiel 22:21 Yes, I will gather you together and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you will be melted within the city.
Amos 3:9 Proclaim to the citadels of Ashdod and to the citadels of Egypt: “Assemble on the mountains of Samaria; see the great unrest in the city and the acts of oppression in her midst.”
- חוֹמָה chômâhwalltranslated this way 2 times of its 128 uses · Strong’s H2346Noun · Translated: wall 75, walls 43, two walls 3, walled 2Full study and all 122 verses →
Joshua 2:15 Then Rahab let them down by a rope through the window, since the house where she lived was built into the wall of the city.
2 Kings 3:27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt offering on the city wall. And there was great fury against the Israelites, so they withdrew and returned to their own land.
- סָבִיב sâbîbcircuit, round abouttranslated this way 2 times of its 295 uses · Strong’s H5439Adverb · Translated: around 151, side 31, surrounding 29, sides 16Full study and all 268 verses →
Jeremiah 33:13 In the cities of the hill country, the foothills, and the Negev, in the land of Benjamin and the cities surrounding Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, the flocks will again pass under the hands of the one who counts them, says the LORD.
Ezekiel 5:2 When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.
Greek words (New Testament)
- πόλις pólisa citytranslated this way 96 times of its 158 uses · Strong’s G4172Noun · Translated: city 87, town 48, towns 10, cities 9Full study and all 151 verses →
Matthew 4:5 Then the devil took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple.
Mark 11:19 And when evening came, Jesus and His disciples went out of the city.
- πολιτάρχης politárchēsa ruler of a citytranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G4173Noun · Translated: city officials 2Full study and all 2 verses →
Acts 17:6 But when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here,
Acts 17:8 On hearing this, the crowd and city officials were greatly disturbed.
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.