Word study

Console

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • נָחַם nâchambe sorry, consoletranslated this way 9 times of its 106 uses · Strong’s H5162Verb  ·  Translated: comfort 24, relent 13, comforted 12, relented 7

    Genesis 27:42 When the words of her older son Esau were relayed to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is consoling himself by plotting to kill you.

    2 Samuel 10:2 And David said, “I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent some of his servants to console Hanun concerning his father. But when they arrived in the land of the Ammonites,

    Full study and all 98 verses →
  • שׂוּם sûmput, place, settranslated this way 1 time of its 560 uses · Strong’s H7760Verb  ·  Translated: put 84, set 71, make 45, made 39

    Isaiah 61:3 to console the mourners in Zion — to give them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.

    Full study and all 533 verses →
  • נוּד nûdmove to and fro, wander, flutter, shew grieftranslated this way 1 time of its 24 uses · Strong’s H5110Verb  ·  Translated: Flee 3, wanderer 2, grieve 2, mourn 2

    Job 42:11 All his brothers and sisters and prior acquaintances came and dined with him in his house. They consoled him and comforted him over all the adversity that the LORD had brought upon him. And each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.

    Full study and all 24 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • παραμυθέομαι paramythéomaiI encourage, comfort, consoletranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G3888Verb  ·  Translated: console 1, consoling 1, comforting 1, encourage 1

    John 11:19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them in the loss of their brother.

    John 11:31 When the Jews who were in the house consoling Mary saw how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

    Full study and all 4 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.