Word study
Fair
5 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “fair”. 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 “fair” 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)
- טוֹב ṭôbpleasant, agreeable, goodtranslated this way 2 times of its 538 uses · Strong’s H2896Adjective · Translated: good 249, better 72, prosperity 19, good things 12Full study and all 499 verses →
1 Kings 2:38 “The sentence is fair,” Shimei replied. “Your servant will do as my lord the king has spoken.” And Shimei lived in Jerusalem for a long time.
1 Kings 2:42 the king summoned Shimei and said to him, “Did I not make you swear by the LORD and warn you, ‘On the day you leave and go elsewhere, know for sure that you will die’? And you told me, ‘The sentence is fair; I will comply.’
- יָפֶה yâphehfair, beautifultranslated this way 1 time of its 42 uses · Strong’s H3303Adjective · Translated: beautiful 25, handsome 4, sleek 3, lovely 2Full study and all 38 verses →
Song of Solomon 6:10 Who is this who shines like the dawn, as fair as the moon, as bright as the sun, as majestic as the stars in procession?
- יָפָה yâphâhbe fair, beautifultranslated this way 1 time of its 8 uses · Strong’s H3302Verb · Translated: beautiful 3, adorn 2, most handsome 1, delightful 1Full study and all 8 verses →
Song of Solomon 7:6 How fair and pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!
- דִּין dînjudgmenttranslated this way 1 time of its 18 uses · Strong’s H1779Noun · Translated: judgment 4, cause 4, justice 3Full study and all 17 verses →
Isaiah 10:2 to deprive the poor of fair treatment and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, to make widows their prey and orphans their plunder.
- טוּב ṭûbgood things, goods, goodnesstranslated this way 1 time of its 32 uses · Strong’s H2898Noun · Translated: goodness 11, best 4, good things 3, prosperity 3Full study and all 31 verses →
Hosea 10:11 Ephraim is a well-trained heifer that loves to thresh; but I will place a yoke on her fair neck. I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, and Jacob will break the hard ground.
Greek words (New Testament)
- καλός kalósbeautiful, good, worthytranslated this way 1 time of its 99 uses · Strong’s G2570Adjective · Translated: good 64, better 9, right 5, noble 4Full study and all 89 verses →
Acts 27:8 After we had moved along the coast with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea.
- αὐτός autóshe, she, it, they, them, sametranslated this way 1 time of its 4,051 uses · Strong’s G846Personal / Possessive Pronoun · Translated: him 1,014, his 849, them 557, their 272Full study and all 2,999 verses →
- ἰσότης isótēsequalitytranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s G2471Noun · Translated: equality 2, fair 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Colossians 4:1 Masters, supply your slaves with what is right and fair, since you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
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.