Word study
Drought
5 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “drought”. 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 “drought” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- צִיָּה tsîâhdryness, droughttranslated this way 2 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H6723Adjective · Translated: dry 7, dry land 3, drought 2, desert 2Full study and all 16 verses →
Job 24:19 As drought and heat consume the melting snow, so Sheol steals those who have sinned.
Jeremiah 2:6 They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
- בַּצֹּרֶת batstsôrethdearthtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H1226Noun · Translated: drought 2Full study and all 2 verses →
Jeremiah 14:1 This is the word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:
Jeremiah 17:8 He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit.
- חֹרֶב chôrebdryness, drought, heattranslated this way 2 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H2721Noun · Translated: heat 3, dry 3, drought 2Full study and all 15 verses →
Jeremiah 50:38 A drought is upon her waters, and they will be dried up. For it is a land of graven images, and the people go mad over idols.
Haggai 1:11 I have summoned a drought on the fields and on the mountains, on the grain, new wine, and oil, and on whatever the ground yields, on man and beast, and on all the labor of your hands.”
- חֶרֶב cherebswordtranslated this way 1 time of its 405 uses · Strong’s H2719Noun · Translated: sword 357, swords 27, knives 3, war 2Full study and all 368 verses →
Deuteronomy 28:22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.
- תַּלְאוּבָה talûbâhdroughttranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H8514Noun · Translated: drought 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Hosea 13:5 I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought.
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.
What the Bible says about drought: 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.