Word study
Exile
7 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: exile, exiles, exiled. 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 “exile” 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)
- גָּלָה gâlâhuncover, removetranslated this way 41 times of its 170 uses · Strong’s H1540Verb · Translated: revealed 14, uncovered 13, exiled 12, sexual relations 11Full study and all 161 verses →
2 Samuel 15:19 Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why should you also go with us? Go back and stay with the new king, since you are both a foreigner and an exile from your homeland.
2 Kings 17:23 Finally, the LORD removed Israel from His presence, as He had declared through all His servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their homeland into Assyria, where they are to this day.
- גּוֹלָה gôlâhexiles, exiletranslated this way 35 times of its 37 uses · Strong’s H1473Noun · Translated: exile 17, exiles 17, captives 1, taken captive 1Full study and all 36 verses →
2 Kings 24:15 Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
1 Chronicles 5:22 and many others fell slain, because the battle belonged to God. And they occupied the land until the exile.
- גָּלוּת gâlûthexiletranslated this way 13 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s H1546Noun · Translated: exiles 6, exile 5, set my exiles 1, captives 1Full study and all 14 verses →
2 Kings 25:27 On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, in the year Evil-merodach became king of Babylon, he released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison.
Isaiah 20:4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old alike, naked and barefoot, with bared buttocks— to Egypt’s shame.
- בֵּן bênsontranslated this way 6 times of its 4,587 uses · Strong’s H1121Noun · Translated: son 1,843, sons 892, Israelites 422, descendants 358Full study and all 3,473 verses →
- שְׁבִי shebîcaptivity, captivestranslated this way 5 times of its 49 uses · Strong’s H7628Noun · Translated: captivity 21, captives 8, exile 5, captive 3Full study and all 46 verses →
Nehemiah 1:2 Hanani, one of my brothers, arrived with men from Judah. So I questioned them about the remnant of the Jews who had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 30:16 Nevertheless, all who devour you will be devoured, and all your adversaries— every one of them— will go off into exile. Those who plundered you will be plundered, and all who raided you will be raided.
- נָדַח nâdachimpel, thrust, banishtranslated this way 5 times of its 54 uses · Strong’s H5080Verb · Translated: banished 13, exiles 5, driven 4, banish 4Full study and all 53 verses →
Nehemiah 1:9 but if you return to Me and keep and practice My commandments, then even if your exiles have been banished to the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for My Name.’
Psalm 147:2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the exiles of Israel.
- בֵּן bêntranslated this way 4 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s H1123Noun · Translated: exiles 4, sons 3, young 1, people 1Full study and all 10 verses →
Ezra 6:16 Then the people of Israel — the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles — celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy.
Daniel 2:25 Arioch hastily brought Daniel before the king and said to him, “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who will tell the king the interpretation.”
Greek words (New Testament)
- μετοικεσία metoikesíachange of abode, migration, deportationtranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G3350Noun · Translated: exile 4Full study and all 3 verses →
Matthew 1:11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
Matthew 1:12 After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
- παρεπίδημος parepídēmosresiding in a strange country, a strangertranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G3927Adjective · Translated: exiles 3Full study and all 3 verses →
Hebrews 11:13 All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
1 Peter 1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the elect who are exiles of the Dispersion throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chosen
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.
What the Bible says about exile: 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.