Word study

Consecration

2 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • קָדַשׁ qâdashbe set apart, consecratedtranslated this way 3 times of its 169 uses · Strong’s H6942Verb  ·  Translated: consecrate 40, consecrated 33, dedicated 10, sanctifies 8

    Exodus 28:3 You are to instruct all the skilled craftsmen, whom I have filled with a spirit of wisdom, to make garments for Aaron’s consecration, so that he may serve Me as priest.

    2 Chronicles 29:17 They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of the LORD. For eight more days they consecrated the house of the LORD itself, finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month.

    Full study and all 151 verses →
  • נֶזֶר nezerconsecration, crown, Naziriteshiptranslated this way 3 times of its 24 uses · Strong’s H5145Noun  ·  Translated: crown 8, separation 8, diadem 2, consecration 2

    Leviticus 21:12 He must not leave or desecrate the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him. I am the LORD.

    Numbers 6:7 Even if his father or mother or brother or sister should die, he is not to defile himself, because the symbol of consecration to his God is upon his head.

    Full study and all 22 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.

What the Bible says about consecration: 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.