Word study
Encounter
4 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: encounter, encountered, encounters, encountering. 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 “encounter” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- מָצָא mâtsâattain to, findtranslated this way 6 times of its 436 uses · Strong’s H4672Verb · Translated: found 197, find 87, finds 13, present 7Full study and all 411 verses →
Exodus 18:8 Then Moses recounted to his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardships they had encountered along the way, and how the LORD had delivered them.
Deuteronomy 22:23 If there is a virgin pledged in marriage to a man, and another man encounters her in the city and sleeps with her,
- פָּגַע pâgameet, encounter, reachtranslated this way 2 times of its 45 uses · Strong’s H6293Verb · Translated: strike 5, struck 4, reached 3, met 2Full study and all 43 verses →
Exodus 23:4 If you encounter your enemy’s stray ox or donkey, you must return it to him.
Amos 5:19 It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake.
- בּוֹא bôcome in, come, go in, gotranslated this way 1 time of its 2,442 uses · Strong’s H935Verb · Translated: come 358, came 298, bring 209, brought 201Full study and all 2,217 verses →
Exodus 23:27 I will send My terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn and run.
- פָּגַשׁ pâgashmeet, encountertranslated this way 1 time of its 14 uses · Strong’s H6298Verb · Translated: met 4, meet 3, common 2Full study and all 14 verses →
Job 5:14 They encounter darkness by day and grope at noon as in the night.
Greek words (New Testament)
- γίνομαι gínomaiI come into being, am borntranslated this way 1 time of its 544 uses · Strong’s G1096Verb · Translated: become 58, came 42, became 34, happened 28Full study and all 515 verses →
- περιπίπτω peripíptōI fall into the midst oftranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s G4045Verb · Translated: fell into the hands 1, struck 1, encounter 1Full study and all 3 verses →
James 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds,
- ἔχω échōI have, hold, possesstranslated this way 1 time of its 624 uses · Strong’s G2192Verb · Translated: has 63, have 52, with 35, you have 29Full study and all 560 verses →
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.