Word study

Cultivate

6 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: cultivate, cultivated. 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 “cultivate” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עָבַד âbadwork, servetranslated this way 6 times of its 286 uses · Strong’s H5647Verb  ·  Translated: serve 110, served 44, worship 32, work 9

    Genesis 2:5 Now no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth, nor had any plant of the field sprouted, for the LORD God had not yet sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

    Deuteronomy 28:39 You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.

    Full study and all 259 verses →
  • רָעָה rââhpasture, tend, grazetranslated this way 1 time of its 170 uses · Strong’s H7462Verb  ·  Translated: shepherd 42, shepherds 39, feed 18, graze 8

    Psalm 37:3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

    Full study and all 146 verses →
  • עֲבֹדָה ăbôdâhlabour, servicetranslated this way 1 time of its 127 uses · Strong’s H5656Noun  ·  Translated: service 56, work 25, labor 8, task 5

    Psalm 104:14 He makes the grass grow for the livestock and provides crops for man to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth:

    Full study and all 112 verses →
  • נָטַע nâṭastrike, fix, planttranslated this way 1 time of its 57 uses · Strong’s H5193Verb  ·  Translated: plant 28, planted 15, plants 2, establish 2

    Isaiah 17:10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you cultivate delightful plots and set out cuttings from exotic vines —

    Full study and all 55 verses →
  • עָבַר âbarpass over, through, by, pass ontranslated this way 1 time of its 542 uses · Strong’s H5674Verb  ·  Translated: pass 62, crossed 57, cross 52, passed 35

    Isaiah 23:10 Cultivate your land like the Nile, O Daughter of Tarshish; there is no longer a harbor.

    Full study and all 487 verses →
  • עֲדַר ădarhelptranslated this way 1 time of its 11 uses · Strong’s H5737Verb  ·  Translated: missing 3

    Isaiah 5:6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.”

    Full study and all 11 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • καλλιέλαιος kalliélaiosa cultivated olive treetranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G2565Noun  ·  Translated: cultivated 1

    Romans 11:24 For if you were cut from a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one that is cultivated, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

    Full study and its 1 verse →
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.