Word study

Confession

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: confession, confessions. 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 “confession” 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)

  • תּוֹדָה tôdâhthanksgivingtranslated this way 2 times of its 32 uses · Strong’s H8426Noun  ·  Translated: thanksgiving 19, thank offerings 5, thank offering 3, thank 2

    Joshua 7:19 So Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and make a confession to Him. I urge you to tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.”

    Ezra 10:11 Now, therefore, make a confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers, and do His will. Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from your foreign wives.”

    Full study and all 30 verses →
  • יָדָה yâdâhthrow, casttranslated this way 2 times of its 114 uses · Strong’s H3034Verb  ·  Translated: praise 36, give thanks 32, confess 11, give you thanks 8

    Ezra 10:1 While Ezra prayed and made this confession, weeping and falling facedown before the house of God, a very large assembly of Israelites — men, women, and children — gathered around him, and the people wept bitterly as well.

    Nehemiah 9:3 While they stood in their places, they read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day, and they spent another quarter of the day in confession and worship of the LORD their God.

    Full study and all 111 verses →
  • דָּבָר dâbârspeech, wordtranslated this way 1 time of its 1,244 uses · Strong’s H1697Noun  ·  Translated: word 342, words 299, acts 51, Chronicles 42Full study and all 1,120 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ὁμολογία homologíaa profession, confessiontranslated this way 3 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s G3671Noun  ·  Translated: confession 3, profess 2, confess 1

    2 Corinthians 9:13 Because of the proof this ministry provides, the saints will glorify God for your obedient confession of the gospel of Christ, and for the generosity of your contribution to them and to all the others.

    1 Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession before many witnesses.

    Full study and all 6 verses →
  • ὁμολογουμένως homologouménōsadmittedlytranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G3672Adverb  ·  Translated: common confession 1

    1 Timothy 3:16 By common confession, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was proclaimed among the nations, was believed in throughout the world, was taken up in glory.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
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 confession: 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.