Word study
Deer
4 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “deer”. 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 “deer” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- אַיָּל ayâlhart, stag, deertranslated this way 8 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H354Noun · Translated: deer 6, stag 2, like a deer 1, like deer 1Full study and all 10 verses →
Deuteronomy 12:15 But whenever you want, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your gates, according to the blessing the LORD your God has given you. Both the ceremonially clean and unclean may eat it as they would a gazelle or deer,
1 Kings 4:23 ten fat oxen, twenty range oxen, and a hundred sheep, as well as deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened poultry.
- אַיָּלָה ayâlâhhind, doetranslated this way 3 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s H355Noun · Translated: doe 5, like those of a deer 3, does 2, oaks 1Full study and all 11 verses →
2 Samuel 22:34 He makes my feet like those of a deer and stations me upon the heights.
Psalm 18:33 He makes my feet like those of a deer and stations me upon the heights.
- יַחְמוּר yachmûrroebucktranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H3180Noun · Translated: roe deer 1, roebucks 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Deuteronomy 14:5 the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.
- אֱוִיל ĕvîlfoolishtranslated this way 1 time of its 26 uses · Strong’s H191Noun · Translated: fool 13, fools 8, foolish 2, like a deer 1Full study and all 26 verses →
Proverbs 7:22 He follows her on impulse, like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer bounding into a trap,
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.
What the Bible says about deer: passages by topic →
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.