Word study
Coast
6 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: coast, coasts. 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 “coast” 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)
- אִי îcoast, regiontranslated this way 5 times of its 36 uses · Strong’s H339Noun · Translated: islands 14, coastlands 8, coasts 4, coastland 3Full study and all 35 verses →
Jeremiah 2:10 Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and take a look; send to Kedar and consider carefully; see if there has ever been anything like this:
Ezekiel 27:3 Tell Tyre, who dwells at the gateway to the sea, merchant of the peoples on many coasts, that this is what the Lord GOD says: You have said, O Tyre, ‘I am perfect in beauty.’
- יָם yâmseatranslated this way 2 times of its 378 uses · Strong’s H3220Noun · Translated: sea 254, west 51, seas 20, west side 7Full study and all 327 verses →
Joshua 5:1 Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted and their spirits failed for fear of the Israelites.
Ezekiel 25:16 therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I will stretch out My hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and destroy the remnant along the coast.
- חוֹף chôphshore, coasttranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H2348Noun · Translated: seashore 1, become a harbor 1, along the coast 1, coast 1Full study and all 5 verses →
Joshua 9:1 Now when news of this reached all the kings west of the Jordan — those in the hill country, the foothills, and all along the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon (the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites)—
Judges 5:17 Gilead remained beyond the Jordan. Dan, why did you linger by the ships? Asher stayed at the coast and remained in his harbors.
- יָד yâdhandtranslated this way 1 time of its 1,403 uses · Strong’s H3027Noun · Translated: hand 664, hands 349, through 64, power 22Full study and all 1,290 verses →
Numbers 24:24 Ships will come from the coasts of Cyprus; they will subdue Asshur and Eber, but they too will perish forever.”
- שָׂפָה sâphâhlip, speech, edgetranslated this way 1 time of its 167 uses · Strong’s H8193Noun · Translated: lips 98, speech 12, rim 10, edge 9Full study and all 159 verses →
2 Chronicles 8:17 Then Solomon went to Ezion-geber and to Eloth on the coast of Edom.
- חֶבֶל chebelcord, territory, bandtranslated this way 1 time of its 60 uses · Strong’s H2256Noun · Translated: cords 10, ropes 9, region 4, pain 3Full study and all 58 verses →
Zephaniah 2:7 The coast will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah; there they will find pasture. They will lie down in the evening among the houses of Ashkelon, for the LORD their God will attend to them and restore their captives.
Greek words (New Testament)
- κατά katádown from, against, according to, throughout, duringtranslated this way 1 time of its 381 uses · Strong’s G2596Preposition · Translated: according 65, against 46, in 41, by 38Full study and all 349 verses →
Acts 27:5 And when we had sailed across the open sea off the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra in Lycia.
- παραλέγομαι paralégomaiI coast along, sail alongtranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s G3881Verb · Translated: moved along the coast 1, sailed along 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Acts 27:8 After we had moved along the coast with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea.
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.