Word study

Decide

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שָׁפַט shâphaṭjudge, governtranslated this way 2 times of its 199 uses · Strong’s H8199Verb  ·  Translated: judge 81, judges 35, judged 15, vindicate 7

    Judges 11:27 I have not sinned against you, but you have done me wrong by waging war against me. May the LORD, the Judge, decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”

    1 Samuel 24:15 May the LORD be our judge and decide between you and me. May He take notice and plead my case and deliver me from your hand.”

    Full study and all 181 verses →
  • רָאָה rââhseetranslated this way 2 times of its 1,266 uses · Strong’s H7200Verb  ·  Translated: see 354, saw 285, seen 124, look 45Full study and all 1,181 verses →
  • יָכַח yâkachdecide, adjudge, provetranslated this way 2 times of its 56 uses · Strong’s H3198Verb  ·  Translated: rebuke 13, rebukes 3, appointed 2, judge 2

    Isaiah 11:3 And He will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what His eyes see, and He will not decide by what His ears hear,

    Isaiah 11:4 but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips.

    Full study and all 54 verses →
  • גָּאַל gâalredeem, act as kinsmantranslated this way 2 times of its 100 uses · Strong’s H1350Verb  ·  Translated: redeemed 25, redeem 21, Redeemer 19, avenger 12

    Leviticus 27:13 If, however, the owner decides to redeem the animal, he must add a fifth to its value.

    Leviticus 27:19 And if the one who consecrated the field decides to redeem it, he must add a fifth to the assessed value, and it shall belong to him.

    Full study and all 84 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • κρίνω krínōI judge, decide, think goodtranslated this way 5 times of its 114 uses · Strong’s G2919Verb  ·  Translated: judge 43, judged 12, judges 7, decided 5

    Acts 3:13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus. You handed Him over and rejected Him before Pilate, even though he had decided to release Him.

    Titus 3:12 As soon as I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, make every effort to come to me at Nicopolis, because I have decided to winter there.

    Full study and all 98 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.