Word study

Faithless

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “faithless”. 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 “faithless” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • בָּגַד bâgadact or deal treacherouslytranslated this way 13 times of its 46 uses · Strong’s H898Verb  ·  Translated: faithless 11, betrayed 6, unfaithful 5, broken faith 3

    Job 6:15 But my brothers are as faithless as wadis, as seasonal streams that overflow,

    Psalm 78:57 They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

    Full study and all 38 verses →
  • מְשׁוּבָה meshûbâhturning back, apostasytranslated this way 4 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s H4878Noun  ·  Translated: faithless 4

    Jeremiah 3:6 Now in the days of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every green tree to prostitute herself there.

    Jeremiah 3:8 She saw that because faithless Israel had committed adultery, I gave her a certificate of divorce and sent her away. Yet that unfaithful sister Judah had no fear and prostituted herself as well.

    Full study and all 12 verses →
  • שׁוֹבָב shôbâbbackturning, recusant, apostatetranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H7726Adjective  ·  Translated: faithless 2, turning back 1, causing them to roam 1

    Jeremiah 3:14 “Return, O faithless children,” declares the LORD, “for I am your master, and I will take you — one from a city and two from a family — and bring you to Zion.

    Jeremiah 3:22 “Return, O faithless children, and I will heal your faithlessness.” “Here we are. We come to You, for You are the LORD our God.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • שׁוֹבֵב shôbêbbackturning, apostatetranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H7728Adjective  ·  Translated: faithless 2, traitors 1

    Jeremiah 31:22 How long will you wander, O faithless daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing in the land— a woman will shelter a man.”

    Jeremiah 49:4 Why do you boast of your valleys— your valleys so fruitful, O faithless daughter? You trust in your riches and say, ‘Who can come against me?’

    Full study and all 3 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.