Word study

Dance

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: dancing, danced, dance, dances. 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 “dance” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מְחֹלָה mechôlâhid.translated this way 8 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H4246Noun  ·  Translated: dancing 4, dances 3, dance 1

    Exodus 15:20 Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her with tambourines and dancing.

    Judges 11:34 And when Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no son or daughter besides her.

    Full study and all 8 verses →
  • מָחוֹל mâchôldancetranslated this way 6 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H4234Noun  ·  Translated: dancing 6

    Psalm 30:11 You turned my mourning into dancing; You peeled off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

    Jeremiah 31:4 Again I will build you, and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out in joyful dancing.

    Full study and all 6 verses →
  • כָּרַר kârardancetranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H3769Verb  ·  Translated: danced 1, dancing 1

    2 Samuel 6:14 And David, wearing a linen ephod, danced with all his might before the LORD,

    2 Samuel 6:16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Saul’s daughter Michal looked down from a window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart.

    Full study and all 2 verses →
  • רָקַד râqadskip abouttranslated this way 2 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H7540Verb  ·  Translated: skip 2, skipped 2

    1 Chronicles 15:29 As the ark of the covenant of the LORD was entering the City of David, Saul’s daughter Michal looked down from a window and saw King David dancing and celebrating, and she despised him in her heart.

    Ecclesiastes 3:4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

    Full study and all 9 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ὀρχέομαι orchéomaiI dancetranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G3738Verb  ·  Translated: dance 2, danced 2

    Matthew 11:17 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’

    Mark 6:22 When the daughter of Herodias came and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests, and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.”

    Full study and all 4 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.