Word study

Expert

4 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: experts, expert. 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 “expert” 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)

  • עָרַךְ ârakarrange or set in ordertranslated this way 1 time of its 75 uses · Strong’s H6186Verb  ·  Translated: arrayed 14, prepared 5, compare 5, set 4

    1 Chronicles 12:8 Some Gadites defected to David at his stronghold in the wilderness. They were mighty men of valor, trained for battle, experts with the shield and spear, whose faces were like the faces of lions and who were as swift as gazelles on the mountains:

    Full study and all 71 verses →
  • יָדַע yâdaknowtranslated this way 1 time of its 914 uses · Strong’s H3045Verb  ·  Translated: know 453, known 53, knows 48, knew 38Full study and all 863 verses →
  • תָּפַשׂ tâphaslay hold of, wieldtranslated this way 1 time of its 64 uses · Strong’s H8610Verb  ·  Translated: seized 8, captured 7, take 4, Seize 4

    Jeremiah 2:8 The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD?’ The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the leaders rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols.

    Full study and all 60 verses →
  • סָפַר sâpharcounttranslated this way 1 time of its 154 uses · Strong’s H5608Verb  ·  Translated: scribe 41, count 19, told 15, declare 13

    Ezra 7:11 This is the text of the letter King Artaxerxes had given to Ezra the priest and scribe, an expert in the commandments and statutes of the LORD to Israel:

    Full study and all 150 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • νομικός nomikósabout law, one learned in the Lawtranslated this way 7 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s G3544Adjective  ·  Translated: experts in the law 5, expert in the law 2, about 1, lawyer 1

    Matthew 22:35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him with a question:

    Luke 7:30 But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.

    Full study and all 9 verses →
  • σοφός sophóswisetranslated this way 1 time of its 20 uses · Strong’s G4680Adjective  ·  Translated: wise 17, to 1, wiser 1, expert 1

    1 Corinthians 3:10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one must be careful how he builds.

    Full study and all 19 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.