Word study

Eunuch

1 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • סָרִיס sârîseunuchtranslated this way 16 times of its 41 uses · Strong’s H5631Noun  ·  Translated: eunuchs 13, officials 6, official 6, court officials 5

    2 Kings 9:32 He looked up at the window and called out, “Who is on my side? Who?” And two or three eunuchs looked down at him.

    Esther 1:10 On the seventh day, when the king’s heart was merry with wine, he ordered the seven eunuchs who served him — Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carkas —

    Full study and all 41 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • εὐνοῦχος eunoûchosa eunuch, keeper of the bed-chambertranslated this way 6 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s G2135Noun  ·  Translated: eunuch 5, eunuchs 1

    Matthew 19:12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way; others were made that way by men; and still others live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

    Acts 8:27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship,

    Full study and all 6 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.

What the Bible says about eunuch: 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.