Word study
Coat
8 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: coat, coated. 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 “coat” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- מָשַׁח mâshachsmear, anointtranslated this way 3 times of its 67 uses · Strong’s H4886Verb · Translated: anointed 36, anoint 22, coated 3, anointing 3Full study and all 66 verses →
Leviticus 2:4 Now if you bring an offering of grain baked in an oven, it must consist of fine flour, either unleavened cakes mixed with oil or unleavened wafers coated with oil.
Numbers 6:15 together with their grain offerings and drink offerings — and a basket of unleavened cakes made from fine flour mixed with oil and unleavened wafers coated with oil.
- שִׂיד sîdwhitewashtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H7874Verb · Translated: coat 2Full study and all 2 verses →
Deuteronomy 27:2 And on the day you cross the Jordan into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, set up large stones and coat them with plaster.
Deuteronomy 27:4 And when you have crossed the Jordan, you are to set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I am commanding you today, and you are to coat them with plaster.
- כָּפַר kâpharcover over (figurative), pacify, make propitiationtranslated this way 1 time of its 100 uses · Strong’s H3722Verb · Translated: make atonement 58, atoned 6, made atonement 4, atone 3Full study and all 94 verses →
Genesis 6:14 Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out.
- אַדֶּרֶת adderethglory, cloaktranslated this way 1 time of its 12 uses · Strong’s H155Noun · Translated: cloak 8, like a fur coat 1, splendid 1, royal robe 1Full study and all 12 verses →
Genesis 25:25 The first one came out red, covered with hair like a fur coat; so they named him Esau.
- שִׁרְיוֹן shiryônbody-armourtranslated this way 1 time of its 8 uses · Strong’s H8302Noun · Translated: armor 5, coat 1, arrow 1, like a breastplate 1Full study and all 8 verses →
1 Samuel 17:5 and he had a bronze helmet on his head. He wore a bronze coat of mail weighing five thousand shekels,
- לְבוּשׁ lebûshgarment, clothing, raimenttranslated this way 1 time of its 32 uses · Strong’s H3830Noun · Translated: clothing 7, garments 4, robe 4, garment 3Full study and all 32 verses →
Job 41:13 Who can strip off his outer coat? Who can approach him with a bridle?
- מַד madmeasuretranslated this way 1 time of its 11 uses · Strong’s H4055Noun · Translated: tunic 2Full study and all 11 verses →
Psalm 109:18 The cursing that he wore like a coat, may it soak into his body like water, and into his bones like oil.
- חָמַר châmarferment, boil or foam uptranslated this way 1 time of its 6 uses · Strong’s H2560Verb · Translated: churning 2, coated 1, red 1, foam 1Full study and all 6 verses →
Exodus 2:3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
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.