Word study

Cruel

6 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • אַכְזָרִי akzârîcrueltranslated this way 7 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H394Adjective  ·  Translated: cruel 5, cruel man 1, cruelty 1, someone cruel 1

    Proverbs 5:9 lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;

    Isaiah 13:9 Behold, the Day of the LORD is coming— cruel, with fury and burning anger— to make the earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners within it.

    Full study and all 8 verses →
  • קָשָׁה qâshâhbe hard, severe, fiercetranslated this way 1 time of its 28 uses · Strong’s H7185Verb  ·  Translated: stiffened 6, difficult 2, harden 2, stiffen 2

    Genesis 49:7 Cursed be their anger, for it is strong, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

    Full study and all 28 verses →
  • קָשֶׁה qâshehhard, severetranslated this way 1 time of its 35 uses · Strong’s H7186Adjective  ·  Translated: stiff-necked 6, harshly 5, hard 3, stubborn 2

    Exodus 6:9 Moses relayed this message to the Israelites, but on account of their broken spirit and cruel bondage, they did not listen to him.

    Full study and all 35 verses →
  • אַכְזְרִיּוּת akzerîûthcruelty, fiercenesstranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H395Noun  ·  Translated: cruel 1

    Proverbs 27:4 Wrath is cruel and anger is like a flood, but who can withstand jealousy?

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • רַע rabad, eviltranslated this way 1 time of its 651 uses · Strong’s H7451Adjective  ·  Translated: evil 263, disaster 72, harm 38, wicked 31

    Ecclesiastes 9:12 For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.

    Full study and all 615 verses →
  • אַכְזָר akzârcruel, fiercetranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H393Adjective  ·  Translated: deadly 1, fierce 1, become cruel 1

    Lamentations 4:3 Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.

    Full study and all 3 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.