Word study
Corrupt
2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: corrupt, corrupted, corrupts. 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 “corrupt” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- שָׁחַת shâchathgo to ruin (?)translated this way 14 times of its 145 uses · Strong’s H7843Verb · Translated: destroy 58, destroyed 13, corrupt 7, corrupted 5Full study and all 135 verses →
Genesis 6:11 Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and full of violence.
Exodus 32:7 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
- אָלַח âlachbe corrupttranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H444Verb · Translated: become corrupt 2, corrupt 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Job 15:16 how much less man, who is vile and corrupt, who drinks injustice like water?
Psalm 14:3 All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
Greek words (New Testament)
- φθείρω phtheírōI corrupt, spoil, destroytranslated this way 4 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s G5351Verb · Translated: corrupted 3, destroyed 2, destroys 1, destroy 1Full study and all 8 verses →
1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
2 Corinthians 7:2 Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have exploited no one.
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.