Word study

Edge

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • קָצֶה qâtsehend, extremitytranslated this way 9 times of its 88 uses · Strong’s H7097Noun  ·  Translated: end 25, ends 14, edge 9, outskirts 6

    Exodus 13:20 They set out from Succoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness.

    Numbers 20:16 and when we cried out to the LORD, He heard our voice, sent an angel, and brought us out of Egypt. Now look, we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory.

    Full study and all 81 verses →
  • שָׂפָה sâphâhlip, speech, edgetranslated this way 9 times of its 167 uses · Strong’s H8193Noun  ·  Translated: lips 98, speech 12, rim 10, edge 9

    Exodus 26:4 Make loops of blue material on the edge of the end curtain in the first set, and do the same for the end curtain in the second set.

    Ezekiel 43:13 These are the measurements of the altar in long cubits (a cubit and a handbreadth): Its gutter shall be a cubit deep and a cubit wide, with a rim of one span around its edge. And this is the height of the altar:

    Full study and all 159 verses →
  • פֵּאָה pêâhcorner, sidetranslated this way 4 times of its 57 uses · Strong’s H6285Noun  ·  Translated: side 34, boundary 4, corners 3, edges 3

    Leviticus 19:9 When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

    Leviticus 19:27 You must not cut off the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

    Full study and all 46 verses →
  • קָהָה qâhâhbe blunt, dulltranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H6949Verb  ·  Translated: set on edge 3, dull 1

    Jeremiah 31:29 “In those days, it will no longer be said: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge.’

    Ezekiel 18:2 “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge’?

    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.

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.