Word study

Commandment

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מִצְוָה mitsvâhcommandmenttranslated this way 146 times of its 180 uses · Strong’s H4687Noun  ·  Translated: commandments 133, command 17, commandment 12, according to the command 4

    Genesis 26:5 because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”

    Exodus 16:28 Then the LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep My commandments and instructions?

    Full study and all 176 verses →
  • דָּבָר dâbârspeech, wordtranslated this way 4 times of its 1,244 uses · Strong’s H1697Noun  ·  Translated: word 342, words 299, acts 51, Chronicles 42

    Exodus 34:28 So Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant — the Ten Commandments.

    Deuteronomy 4:13 He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to follow — the Ten Commandments that He wrote on two tablets of stone.

    Full study and all 1,120 verses →
  • פֶּה pehmouthtranslated this way 2 times of its 423 uses · Strong’s H6310Noun  ·  Translated: mouth 207, mouths 43, command 38, lips 10

    Numbers 14:41 But Moses said, “Why are you transgressing the commandment of the LORD? This will not succeed!

    1 Samuel 15:24 Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; I have transgressed the LORD’s commandment and your instructions, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

    Full study and all 396 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἐντολή entolḗan ordinance, injunction, commandtranslated this way 51 times of its 66 uses · Strong’s G1785Noun  ·  Translated: commandment 28, commandments 23, command 4, commanded 4

    Matthew 5:19 So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

    Mark 7:8 You have disregarded the commandment of God to keep the tradition of men.”

    Full study and all 61 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.

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.