Word study
Dry
11 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: dry, dried, dries. 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 “dry” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- יָבֵשׁ yâbêshbe dry, dried up, witheredtranslated this way 32 times of its 59 uses · Strong’s H3001Verb · Translated: dried 15, dry 13, withered 9, wither 5Full study and all 53 verses →
Genesis 8:7 and sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth.
Joshua 2:10 For we have heard how the LORD dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites across the Jordan, whom you devoted to destruction.
- יַבָּשָׁה yabbâshâhdry land, dry groundtranslated this way 14 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H3004Noun · Translated: dry ground 8, dry land 4, dry 2Full study and all 14 verses →
Genesis 1:9 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered into one place, so that the dry land may appear.” And it was so.
Exodus 4:9 But if they do not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. Then the water you take from the Nile will become blood on the ground.”
- חָרַב chârabbe dry, dried uptranslated this way 14 times of its 38 uses · Strong’s H2717Verb · Translated: dried 7, laid waste 6, dry 4, Kill 2Full study and all 36 verses →
Genesis 8:13 In Noah’s six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth. So Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
Judges 16:7 Samson told her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become as weak as any other man.”
- צִיָּה tsîâhdryness, droughttranslated this way 10 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H6723Adjective · Translated: dry 7, dry land 3, drought 2, desert 2Full study and all 16 verses →
Job 30:3 Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night.
Psalm 63:1 A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You. My body yearns for You in a dry and weary land without water.
- חָרָבָה chârâbâhdry groundtranslated this way 8 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H2724Noun · Translated: dry land 4, dry ground 3, dry 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Genesis 7:22 Of all that was on dry land, everything that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
Exodus 14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove back the sea with a strong east wind that turned it into dry land. So the waters were divided,
- יָבֵשׁ yâbêshdry, driedtranslated this way 6 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H3002Adjective · Translated: dry 6, raisins 1, gone 1, make the withered 1Full study and all 9 verses →
Job 13:25 Would You frighten a windblown leaf? Would You chase after dry chaff?
Isaiah 56:3 Let no foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will utterly exclude me from His people.” And let the eunuch not say, “I am but a dry tree.”
- חֹרֶב chôrebdryness, drought, heattranslated this way 3 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H2721Noun · Translated: heat 3, dry 3, drought 2Full study and all 15 verses →
Judges 6:37 then behold, I will place a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that You are going to save Israel by my hand, as You have said.”
Judges 6:39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me; let me speak one more time. Please allow me one more test with the fleece. This time let it be dry, and the ground covered with dew.”
- חָרֵב chârêbdrytranslated this way 2 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H2720Adjective · Translated: lies in ruins 3, dry 2Full study and all 10 verses →
Leviticus 7:10 and every grain offering, whether dry or mixed with oil, belongs equally to all the sons of Aaron.
Proverbs 17:1 Better a dry morsel in quietness than a house full of feasting with strife.
- חָסֵר châsêrlack, need, be lacking, decreasetranslated this way 2 times of its 21 uses · Strong’s H2637Verb · Translated: lack 4, lacked 3, run dry 2, lacks 2Full study and all 21 verses →
1 Kings 17:14 for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be exhausted and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD sends rain upon the face of the earth.’”
1 Kings 17:16 The jar of flour was not exhausted and the jug of oil did not run dry, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through Elijah.
- צִיוֹן tsîôndryness, parched groundtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H6724Noun · Translated: dry land 2Full study and all 2 verses →
Isaiah 25:5 like heat in a dry land. You subdue the uproar of foreigners. As the shade of a cloud cools the heat, so the song of the ruthless is silenced.
Isaiah 32:2 Each will be like a shelter from the wind, a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in a dry land, like the shadow of a great rock in an arid land.
- מְשַׁמָּה meshammâhwaste, amazementtranslated this way 2 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H4923Noun · Translated: waste 4, dried 2, horror 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Isaiah 15:6 The waters of Nimrim are dried up, and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone, and the greenery is no more.
Jeremiah 48:34 There is a cry from Heshbon to Elealeh; they raise their voices to Jahaz, from Zoar to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah; for even the waters of Nimrim have dried up.
Greek words (New Testament)
- ξηρός xērósdry, withered, dry landtranslated this way 2 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s G3584Adjective · Translated: withered 4, dry 2, paralyzed 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Luke 23:31 For if men do these things while the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
Hebrews 11:29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to follow, they were drowned.
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.