Word study

Entrance

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • פֶּתַח pethachopening, doorway, entrancetranslated this way 113 times of its 157 uses · Strong’s H6607Noun  ·  Translated: entrance 107, door 14, doorway 13, doors 5

    Genesis 18:1 Then the LORD appeared to Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre in the heat of the day, while he was sitting at the entrance of his tent.

    Exodus 26:36 For the entrance to the tent, you are to make a curtain embroidered with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and finely spun linen.

    Full study and all 150 verses →
  • מָבוֹא mâbôentrance, a coming in, enteringtranslated this way 11 times of its 23 uses · Strong’s H3996Noun  ·  Translated: entrance 10, sets 3, west 2

    Judges 1:25 So the man showed them the entrance to the city, and they put the city to the sword but released that man and all his family.

    2 Kings 11:16 So they seized Athaliah as she reached the horses’ entrance to the palace grounds, and there she was put to death.

    Full study and all 23 verses →
  • שַׁעַר shaargatetranslated this way 4 times of its 362 uses · Strong’s H8179Noun  ·  Translated: gate 195, gates 84, gateway 30, within your gates 15

    Exodus 32:26 So Moses stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” And all the Levites gathered around him.

    Exodus 38:18 The curtain for the entrance to the courtyard was embroidered with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and finely spun linen. It was twenty cubits long and, like the curtains of the courtyard, five cubits high,

    Full study and all 299 verses →
  • בּוֹא bôcome in, come, go in, gotranslated this way 3 times of its 2,442 uses · Strong’s H935Verb  ·  Translated: come 358, came 298, bring 209, brought 201Full study and all 2,217 verses →
  • סַף saphbasin, goblettranslated this way 2 times of its 26 uses · Strong’s H5592Noun  ·  Translated: threshold 7, thresholds 5, basins 4, doors 2

    Esther 2:21 In those days, while Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the entrance, grew angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.

    Esther 6:2 And there it was found recorded that Mordecai had exposed Bigthana and Teresh, two of the eunuchs who guarded the king’s entrance, when they had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.

    Full study and all 24 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • θύρα thýraa door, opportunitytranslated this way 4 times of its 37 uses · Strong’s G2374Noun  ·  Translated: door 20, doors 6, gate 5, entrance 4

    Matthew 27:60 and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut into the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance to the tomb and went away.

    Mark 15:46 So Joseph bought a linen cloth, took down the body of Jesus, wrapped it in the cloth, and placed it in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.

    Full study and all 36 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.