Word study

Continually

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • תָּמִיד tâmîdcontinuitytranslated this way 14 times of its 99 uses · Strong’s H8548Adverb  ·  Translated: always 26, regular 20, continually 14, regularly 7

    Exodus 27:20 And you are to command the Israelites to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to keep the lamps burning continually.

    Leviticus 6:13 The fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it must not be extinguished.

    Full study and all 99 verses →
  • כֹּל kôlthe whole, alltranslated this way 2 times of its 5,107 uses · Strong’s H3605Noun  ·  Translated: all 1,589, and all 471, whole 223, every 196Full study and all 4,112 verses →
  • תְּדִירָא tedîrâcontinuancetranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H8411Noun  ·  Translated: continually 2

    Daniel 6:16 So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!”

    Daniel 6:20 When he reached the den, he cried out in a voice of anguish, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?”

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀδιαλείπτως adialeíptōsunceasinglytranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G89Adverb  ·  Translated: continually 2, constantly 1, without ceasing 1

    1 Thessalonians 1:3 and continually recalling before our God and Father your work of faith, your labor of love, and your enduring hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

    1 Thessalonians 2:13 And we continually thank God because, when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which is also now at work in you who believe.

    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.