Word study
Cook
9 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: cook, cooking, cooked, cooks. 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 “cook” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- בָּשַׁל bâshalboil, seethetranslated this way 9 times of its 27 uses · Strong’s H1310Verb · Translated: cook 6, boiled 6, boil 5, cooked 3Full study and all 24 verses →
Exodus 12:9 Do not eat any of the meat raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over the fire— its head and legs and inner parts.
Deuteronomy 14:21 You are not to eat any carcass; you may give it to the foreigner residing within your gates, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people belonging to the LORD your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
- פָּרוּר pârûrpottranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H6517Noun · Translated: cooking pot 2, pot 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Numbers 11:8 The people walked around and gathered it, ground it on a handmill or crushed it in a mortar, then boiled it in a cooking pot or shaped it into cakes. It tasted like pastry baked with fine oil.
1 Samuel 2:14 and plunge it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or cooking pot. And the priest would claim for himself whatever the meat fork brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.
- סִיר sîrpottranslated this way 2 times of its 34 uses · Strong’s H5518Noun · Translated: pots 11, pot 11, thorns 4, washbasin 2Full study and all 32 verses →
Ezekiel 11:3 They are saying, ‘Is not the time near to build houses? The city is the cooking pot, and we are the meat.’
Zechariah 14:20 On that day, HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the house of the LORD will be like the sprinkling bowls before the altar.
- טַבָּח ṭabbâchcooktranslated this way 2 times of its 31 uses · Strong’s H2876Noun · Translated: guard 29, cook 2Full study and all 31 verses →
1 Samuel 9:23 And Samuel said to the cook, “Bring the portion I gave you and told you to set aside.”
1 Samuel 9:24 So the cook picked up the leg and what was attached to it and set it before Saul. Then Samuel said, “Here is what was kept back. It was set apart for you. Eat, for it has been kept for you for this occasion, from the time I said, ‘I have invited the people.’” So Saul dined with Samuel that day.
- זוּד zûdbe presumptuoustranslated this way 1 time of its 10 uses · Strong’s H2102Verb · Translated: cooking 1, treated israel with arrogance 1, acts willfully 1, presumptuously 1Full study and all 10 verses →
Genesis 25:29 One day, while Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the field and was famished.
- כִּיר kîrcooking-furnacetranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H3600Noun · Translated: cooking pot 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Leviticus 11:35 Anything upon which one of their carcasses falls will be unclean. If it is an oven or cooking pot, it must be smashed; it is unclean and will remain unclean for you.
- עָשָׂה âsâhdo, maketranslated this way 1 time of its 2,478 uses · Strong’s H6213Verb · Translated: done 292, made 265, make 143, did 112Full study and all 2,206 verses →
- תָּמַם tâmambe complete, finishedtranslated this way 1 time of its 56 uses · Strong’s H8552Verb · Translated: gone 6, finished 4, consumed 4, meet their end 3Full study and all 54 verses →
Ezekiel 24:10 Pile on the logs and kindle the fire; cook the meat well and mix in the spices; let the bones be burned.
- טַבָּחָה ṭabbâchâhfemale cooktranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H2879Noun · Translated: cooks 1Full study and its 1 verse →
1 Samuel 8:13 And he will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.