Word study
Creature
10 Hebrew and 4 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: creatures, creature. 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 “creature” 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)
- חַי chayalive, livingtranslated this way 23 times of its 485 uses · Strong’s H2416Noun · Translated: life 112, lives 62, living 59, live 53Full study and all 441 verses →
Genesis 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”
1 Samuel 17:46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand. This day I will strike you down, cut off your head, and give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the creatures of the earth. Then the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.
- שֶׁרֶץ sheretsswarmers, swarming thingstranslated this way 10 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s H8318Noun · Translated: insects 4, crawling creature 3, creature 3, creatures 2Full study and all 15 verses →
Genesis 1:20 And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.”
Leviticus 5:2 Or if a person touches anything unclean— whether the carcass of any unclean wild animal or livestock or crawling creature— even if he is unaware of it, he is unclean and guilty.
- רֶמֶשׂ remescreeping things, moving thingstranslated this way 10 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H7431Noun · Translated: crawling creature 4, creature 2, crawling creatures 2Full study and all 16 verses →
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”
Psalm 104:25 Here is the sea, vast and wide, teeming with creatures beyond number, living things both great and small.
- נֶפֶשׁ nepheshsoul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion, and passiontranslated this way 9 times of its 666 uses · Strong’s H5315Noun · Translated: soul 178, life 119, lives 30, person 22Full study and all 622 verses →
Genesis 1:24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.
Leviticus 11:10 But the following among all the teeming life and creatures in the water are detestable to you: everything in the seas or streams that does not have fins and scales.
- בָּשָׂר bâsârfleshtranslated this way 9 times of its 231 uses · Strong’s H1320Noun · Translated: flesh 91, meat 59, body 22, himself 8Full study and all 212 verses →
Genesis 6:12 And God looked upon the earth and saw that it was corrupt; for all living creatures on the earth had corrupted their ways.
Psalm 136:25 He gives food to every creature. His loving devotion endures forever.
- צִיִּי tsîîdesert-dwellertranslated this way 4 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H6728Noun · Translated: desert creatures 4, nomads 1, desert 1Full study and all 6 verses →
Isaiah 13:21 But desert creatures will lie down there, and howling creatures will fill her houses. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will leap about.
Jeremiah 50:39 So the desert creatures and hyenas will live there and ostriches will dwell there. It will never again be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation.
- עַם ampeopletranslated this way 3 times of its 1,751 uses · Strong’s H5971Noun · Translated: people 1,346, peoples 111, troops 89, nations 65Full study and all 1,601 verses →
- תַּנִּין tannînserpent, dragon, sea-monstertranslated this way 2 times of its 28 uses · Strong’s H8577Noun · Translated: jackals 11, serpent 5, dragon 2, like a monster 2Full study and all 28 verses →
Genesis 1:21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters teemed according to their kinds, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Psalm 148:7 Praise the LORD from the earth, all great sea creatures and ocean depths,
- זִיז zîzmoving thingstranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H2123Noun · Translated: creatures 2, abundance 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Psalm 50:11 I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are Mine.
Psalm 80:13 The boar from the forest ravages it, and the creatures of the field feed upon it.
- רָמַשׂ râmascreep, move lightly, move abouttranslated this way 2 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H7430Verb · Translated: crawls 8, moves 3, creature that crawls 2, moved 1Full study and all 16 verses →
Genesis 1:30 And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth — everything that has the breath of life in it — I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Deuteronomy 4:18 or of any creature that crawls on the ground or fish that is in the waters below.
Greek words (New Testament)
- ζῶον zōonan animaltranslated this way 17 times of its 20 uses · Strong’s G2226Noun · Translated: living creatures 13, living creature 4, animals 3Full study and all 20 verses →
Revelation 4:6 And before the throne was something like a sea of glass, as clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, covered with eyes in front and back.
Revelation 4:7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second like a calf, the third had a face like a man, and the fourth was like an eagle in flight.
- κτίσις ktísiscreation, creature, institutiontranslated this way 3 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s G2937Noun · Translated: creation 14, creature 3, God's creation 1, institution 1Full study and all 19 verses →
Mark 16:15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Romans 1:25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.
- κτίσμα ktísmaa created thing, creaturetranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G2938Noun · Translated: creation 2, creature 1, creatures 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Revelation 5:13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever!”
Revelation 8:9 a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
- θηρίον thēríona wild beast, animaltranslated this way 2 times of its 44 uses · Strong’s G2342Noun · Translated: beast 36, creature 2, beasts 2Full study and all 38 verses →
Acts 28:4 When the islanders saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “Surely this man is a murderer. Although he was saved from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”
Acts 28:5 But Paul shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no ill effects.
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 creature: 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.