Word study

Confined

6 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “confined”. 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 “confined” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • אָסַר âsartie, bind, imprisontranslated this way 3 times of its 66 uses · Strong’s H631Verb  ·  Translated: bound 16, tied 5, prisoners 4, confined 3

    Genesis 39:20 So Joseph’s master took him and had him thrown into the prison where the king’s prisoners were confined. While Joseph was there in the prison,

    Genesis 40:3 and imprisoned them in the house of the captain of the guard, the same prison where Joseph was confined.

    Full study and all 62 verses →
  • סָגַר sâgarshut, closetranslated this way 3 times of its 90 uses · Strong’s H5462Verb  ·  Translated: shut 23, closed 9, isolate 8, delivered 8

    Numbers 12:14 But the LORD answered Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Let her be confined outside the camp for seven days; after that she may be brought back in.”

    Isaiah 24:22 They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit. They will be confined to a dungeon and punished after many days.

    Full study and all 87 verses →
  • עָצָר âtsârrestrain, retaintranslated this way 3 times of its 44 uses · Strong’s H6113Verb  ·  Translated: halted 6, slave 5, shut 4, confined 3

    Nehemiah 6:10 Later, I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his house. He said: “Let us meet at the house of God inside the temple. Let us shut the temple doors because they are coming to kill you — by night they are coming to kill you!”

    Jeremiah 33:1 While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the LORD came to him a second time:

    Full study and all 44 verses →
  • נָפַל nâphalfall, lietranslated this way 1 time of its 432 uses · Strong’s H5307Verb  ·  Translated: fall 104, fell 77, fallen 54, falls 21

    Exodus 21:18 If men are quarreling and one strikes the other with a stone or a fist, and he does not die but is confined to bed,

    Full study and all 403 verses →
  • צָרַר tsârarbind, tie up, be restricted, narrow, scant, crampedtranslated this way 1 time of its 53 uses · Strong’s H6887Verb  ·  Translated: distress 5, foes 4, enemy 4, enemies 4

    2 Samuel 20:3 When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace, and he placed them in a house under guard. He provided for them, but he no longer slept with them. They were confined until the day of their death, living as widows.

    Full study and all 52 verses →
  • כָּלָא kâlâshut up, restrain, withholdtranslated this way 1 time of its 17 uses · Strong’s H3607Verb  ·  Translated: restrained 3, withhold 2, kept 2, imprisoned 2

    Psalm 88:8 You have removed my friends from me; You have made me repulsive to them; I am confined and cannot escape.

    Full study and all 16 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

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.