Word study

Festering

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • אֲבַעְבֻּעָה ăbabuâhinflammatory pustuletranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H76Noun  ·  Translated: festering 2

    Exodus 9:9 It will become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on man and beast throughout the land.”

    Exodus 9:10 So they took soot from the furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on man and beast.

    Full study and all 2 verses →
  • גָּרָב gârâbitch, scabtranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H1618Noun  ·  Translated: festering rash 2, scabs 1

    Leviticus 21:20 or who is a hunchback or dwarf, or who has an eye defect, a festering rash, scabs, or a crushed testicle.

    Leviticus 22:22 You are not to present to the LORD any animal that is blind, injured, or maimed, or anything with a running sore, a festering rash, or a scab; you must not put any of these on the altar as a food offering to the LORD.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • מָאַס mâasrejecttranslated this way 1 time of its 75 uses · Strong’s H3988Verb  ·  Translated: rejected 36, reject 15, despise 5, despises 3

    Job 7:5 My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.

    Full study and all 69 verses →
  • מָקַק mâqaqdecay, rot, festertranslated this way 1 time of its 10 uses · Strong’s H4743Verb  ·  Translated: rot 3, waste away 2, wasting away 2, decay 1

    Psalm 38:5 My wounds are foul and festering because of my sinful folly.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • טָרִי ṭârîfreshtranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2961Adjective  ·  Translated: fresh 1, festering 1

    Isaiah 1:6 From the sole of your foot to the top of your head, there is no soundness— only wounds and welts and festering sores neither cleansed nor bandaged nor soothed with oil.

    Full study and all 2 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.