Word study

Divination

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • קֶסֶם qesemdivinationtranslated this way 8 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s H7081Noun  ·  Translated: divination 4

    Numbers 22:7 The elders of Moab and Midian departed with the fees for divination in hand. They came to Balaam and relayed to him the words of Balak.

    Deuteronomy 18:10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery,

    Full study and all 11 verses →
  • נָחַשׁ nâchashhiss, whisper, prognosticatetranslated this way 5 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H5172Verb  ·  Translated: divination 2

    Genesis 30:27 But Laban replied, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you.”

    Leviticus 19:26 You must not eat anything with blood still in it. You must not practice divination or sorcery.

    Full study and all 9 verses →
  • קָסַם qâsampractise divinationtranslated this way 5 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H7080Verb  ·  Translated: diviners 7, divinations 3

    Ezekiel 13:9 My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and speak lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of My people or be recorded in the register of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord GOD.

    Micah 3:6 Therefore night will come over you without visions, and darkness without divination. The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn black over them.

    Full study and all 19 verses →
  • מִקְסָם miqsâmdivinationtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H4738Noun  ·  Translated: divinations 1, divination 1

    Ezekiel 12:24 For there will be no more false visions or flattering divinations within the house of Israel,

    Ezekiel 13:7 Haven’t you seen a false vision and spoken a lying divination when you proclaim, ‘Thus declares the LORD,’ even though I have not spoken?

    Full study and all 2 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 divination: 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.