Word study

Dark

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • קָדַר qâdarbe darktranslated this way 4 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s H6937Verb  ·  Translated: grow dark 3, sorrow 2, mourn 2, darken 2

    1 Kings 18:45 Meanwhile, the sky grew dark with clouds and wind, and a heavy rain began to fall. So Ahab rode away and went to Jezreel.

    Jeremiah 4:28 Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above will grow dark. I have spoken, I have planned, and I will not relent or turn back.”

    Full study and all 17 verses →
  • חָשַׁךְ châshakbe, grow darktranslated this way 4 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s H2821Verb  ·  Translated: darkened 3

    Job 3:9 May its morning stars grow dark; may it wait in vain for daylight; may it not see the breaking of dawn.

    Psalm 105:28 He sent darkness, and it became dark— yet they defied His words.

    Full study and all 17 verses →
  • חֹשֶׁךְ chôshekdarkness, obscuritytranslated this way 3 times of its 80 uses · Strong’s H2822Noun  ·  Translated: darkness 74, dark 3, dusk 1, obscurity 1

    Job 22:11 it is so dark you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.

    Psalm 35:6 May their path be dark and slick, as the angel of the LORD pursues.

    Full study and all 77 verses →
  • עֲרָפֶל ărâphelcloud, heavy cloudtranslated this way 2 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s H6205Noun  ·  Translated: thick darkness 5, dark clouds 2, thick cloud 2, darkness 2

    2 Samuel 22:10 He parted the heavens and came down with dark clouds beneath His feet.

    Psalm 18:9 He parted the heavens and came down with dark clouds beneath His feet.

    Full study and all 15 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • σκοτία skotíadarknesstranslated this way 4 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s G4653Noun  ·  Translated: darkness 13, dark 4

    Matthew 10:27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.

    Luke 12:3 What you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops.

    Full study and all 13 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.