Word study

Coal

3 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: coals, coal. 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 “coal” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • גֶּחֶל gechelembertranslated this way 16 times of its 18 uses · Strong’s H1513Noun  ·  Translated: coals 8, burning coals 4, glowing coals 2

    Leviticus 16:12 Then he must take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense, and take them inside the veil.

    2 Samuel 22:9 Smoke rose from His nostrils, and consuming fire came from His mouth; glowing coals blazed forth.

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • אֵשׁ êshfiretranslated this way 2 times of its 313 uses · Strong’s H784Noun  ·  Translated: fire 256, like fire 11, fiery 8, burning 6

    Numbers 16:37 “Tell Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to remove the censers from the flames and to scatter the coals far away, because the censers are holy.

    Isaiah 30:14 It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”

    Full study and all 289 verses →
  • פֶּחָם pechâmcoaltranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H6352Noun  ·  Translated: coals 2, Like charcoal 1

    Isaiah 44:12 The blacksmith takes a tool and labors over the coals; he fashions an idol with hammers and forges it with his strong arms. Yet he grows hungry and loses his strength; he fails to drink water and grows faint.

    Isaiah 54:16 Behold, I have created the craftsman who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its task; and I have created the destroyer to wreak havoc.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. 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.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. 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 coal: 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.