Word study

Devout

1 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חֶסֶד chesedgoodness, kindnesstranslated this way 1 time of its 247 uses · Strong’s H2617Noun  ·  Translated: loving devotion 175, kindness 31, according to your loving devotion 6, favor 4

    Isaiah 57:1 The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous are taken away from the presence of evil.

    Full study and all 241 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • εὐλαβής eulabḗscautious, pioustranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G2126Adjective  ·  Translated: devout 2, God-fearing 2

    Luke 2:25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

    Acts 22:12 There a man named Ananias, a devout observer of the law who was highly regarded by all the Jews living there,

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • εὐσεβής eusebḗspious, God-fearingtranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G2152Adjective  ·  Translated: devout 2, godly 1

    Acts 10:2 He and all his household were devout and God-fearing. He gave generously to the people and prayed to God regularly.

    Acts 10:7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among his attendants.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • σέβομαι sébomaiI reverence, worshiptranslated this way 1 time of its 10 uses · Strong’s G4576Verb  ·  Translated: worship 3, worshiper 2, God-fearing 2, devout 1

    Acts 13:43 After the synagogue was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke to them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.

    Full study and all 10 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.