Word study

Devour

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: devour, devoured, devours, devouring. 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 “devour” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • אָכַל âkaleattranslated this way 76 times of its 784 uses · Strong’s H398Verb  ·  Translated: eat 341, ate 64, eaten 63, consumed 39

    Genesis 37:20 “Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. We can say that a vicious animal has devoured him. Then we shall see what becomes of his dreams!”

    Exodus 10:5 They will cover the face of the land so that no one can see it. They will devour whatever is left after the hail and eat every tree that grows in your fields.

    Full study and all 696 verses →
  • אֲכַל ăkaleat, devourtranslated this way 3 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H399Verb  ·  Translated: maliciously 1, ate 1, falsely accused 1, gorge 1

    Daniel 7:7 After this, as I watched in my vision in the night, suddenly a fourth beast appeared, and it was terrifying — dreadful and extremely strong — with large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed; then it trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the beasts before it, and it had ten horns.

    Daniel 7:19 Then I wanted to know the true meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others — extremely terrifying — devouring and crushing with iron teeth and bronze claws, then trampling underfoot whatever was left.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • אׇכְלָה oklâhfood, eatingtranslated this way 2 times of its 18 uses · Strong’s H402Noun  ·  Translated: food 11, fuel 3, eat 2, devour 2

    Jeremiah 12:9 Is not My inheritance to Me like a speckled bird of prey with other birds of prey circling against her? Go, gather all the beasts of the field; bring them to devour her.

    Ezekiel 35:12 Then you will know that I, the LORD, have heard every contemptuous word you uttered against the mountains of Israel when you said, ‘They are desolate; they are given to us to devour!’

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • גָּזָם gâzâmlocuststranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H1501Noun  ·  Translated: devouring locust 2, locust 1

    Joel 1:4 What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.

    Joel 2:25 I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts — the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust— My great army that I sent against you.

    Full study and all 3 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

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.