Word study

Disciple

1 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: disciples, disciple, discipled. 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 “disciple” or one of its forms.

Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • לִמּוּד limmûdtaughttranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H3928Adjective  ·  Translated: disciples 1, discipleship 1, disciple 1, taught 1

    Isaiah 8:16 Bind up the testimony and seal the law among my disciples.

    Isaiah 50:4 The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of discipleship, to sustain the weary with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning; He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.

    Full study and all 5 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • μαθητής mathētḗsa learner, disciple, pupiltranslated this way 256 times of its 256 uses · Strong’s G3101Noun  ·  Translated: disciples 229, disciple 27

    Matthew 5:1 When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to Him,

    Mark 2:15 While Jesus was dining at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him and His disciples — for there were many who followed Him.

    Full study and all 244 verses →
  • μαθητεύω mathēteúōI make disciples, make into disciplestranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G3100Verb  ·  Translated: discipled 1, disciple 1, make disciples 1, made many disciples 1

    Matthew 13:52 Then He told them, “For this reason, every scribe who has been discipled in the kingdom of heaven is like a homeowner who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

    Acts 14:21 They preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch,

    Full study and all 4 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.

What the Bible says about disciple: 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.