Word study
Copper
2 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “copper”. 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 “copper” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- נְחֹשֶׁת nechôshethcopper, bronzetranslated this way 4 times of its 139 uses · Strong’s H5178Noun · Translated: bronze 123, bronze shackles 5, copper 4Full study and all 119 verses →
Deuteronomy 8:9 a land where you will eat food without scarcity, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and whose hills are ready to be mined for copper.
Ezekiel 22:18 “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me. All of them are copper, tin, iron, and lead inside the furnace; they are but the dross of silver.
- נְחוּשָׁה nechûshâhcopper, bronzetranslated this way 1 time of its 10 uses · Strong’s H5154Noun · Translated: bronze 7, like bronze 1, bronze-tipped 1, copper 1Full study and all 10 verses →
Job 28:2 Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore.
Greek words (New Testament)
- λεπτόν leptóna small piece of moneytranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G3016Noun · Translated: small copper coins 2, penny 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Mark 12:42 Then one poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amounted to a small fraction of a denarius.
Luke 21:2 and He saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.
- χαλκός chalkóscopper, brass, moneytranslated this way 1 time of its 5 uses · Strong’s G5475Noun · Translated: money 2, copper 1, gong 1, bronze 1Full study and all 5 verses →
Matthew 10:9 Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts.
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.
What the Bible says about copper: 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.