Word study
Dispossess
4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: dispossess, dispossessed, dispossessing. 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 “dispossess” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- יָרַשׁ yârashtake possession of, inherit, dispossesstranslated this way 8 times of its 230 uses · Strong’s H3423Verb · Translated: possess 72, drive 27, take possession 21, driven 12Full study and all 204 verses →
Deuteronomy 9:1 Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens.
Joshua 13:12 the whole kingdom of Og in Bashan, who had reigned in Ashtaroth and Edrei and had remained as a remnant of the Rephaim. Moses had struck them down and dispossessed them,
- נָחַל nâchalget or take as a possessiontranslated this way 1 time of its 58 uses · Strong’s H5157Verb · Translated: inheritance 11, inherit 7, receive an inheritance 3, possess 2Full study and all 56 verses →
Zephaniah 2:9 Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah— a place of weeds and salt pits, a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of My people will plunder them; the remainder of My nation will dispossess them.”
- גְרֻשָׁה gerushâhexpulsion, violencetranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H1646Noun · Translated: dispossessing 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Ezekiel 45:9 For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Enough, O princes of Israel! Cease your violence and oppression, and do what is just and right. Stop dispossessing My people, declares the Lord GOD.’
- בֵּן bênsontranslated this way 1 time of its 4,587 uses · Strong’s H1121Noun · Translated: son 1,843, sons 892, Israelites 422, descendants 358Full study and all 3,473 verses →
Greek words (New Testament)
- κατάσχεσις katáschesisa possessiontranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s G2697Noun · Translated: possession 1, dispossessed 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Acts 7:45 And our fathers who received it brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations God drove out before them. It remained until the time of David,
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.
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.