Word study

Flourish

6 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: flourish, flourishing, flourishes, flourished. 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 “flourish” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • פָּרַח pârachbud, sprout, shoottranslated this way 6 times of its 33 uses · Strong’s H6524Verb  ·  Translated: flourish 6, budded 3, broken 3, sprout 3

    Psalm 72:7 May the righteous flourish in his days and prosperity abound until the moon is no more.

    Proverbs 14:11 The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish.

    Full study and all 32 verses →
  • רַעֲנָן raănânluxuriant, freshtranslated this way 5 times of its 20 uses · Strong’s H7488Adjective  ·  Translated: green 12, flourishing 4, flourish 1, fine 1

    Job 15:32 It will be paid in full before his time, and his branch will not flourish.

    Psalm 37:35 I have seen a wicked, ruthless man flourishing like a well-rooted native tree,

    Full study and all 20 verses →
  • צָלַח tsâlachrushtranslated this way 3 times of its 65 uses · Strong’s H6743Verb  ·  Translated: prosper 13, succeed 8, success 5, prospered 5

    Ezekiel 17:9 So you are to tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Will it flourish? Will it not be uprooted and stripped of its fruit so that it shrivels? All its foliage will wither! It will not take a strong arm or many people to pull it up by its roots.

    Ezekiel 17:10 Even if it is transplanted, will it flourish? Will it not completely wither when the east wind strikes? It will wither on the bed where it sprouted.’”

    Full study and all 64 verses →
  • שָׂגָה sâgâhgrow, increasetranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H7685Verb  ·  Translated: flourish 2, increase 1, grow 1

    Job 8:7 Though your beginnings were modest, your latter days will flourish.

    Job 8:11 Does papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Do reeds flourish without water?

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • צוּץ tsûtsblossomtranslated this way 2 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H6692Verb  ·  Translated: flourish 2

    Psalm 72:16 May there be an abundance of grain in the land; may it sway atop the hills. May its fruit trees flourish like the forests of Lebanon, the people of its cities like the grass of the field.

    Psalm 92:7 that though the wicked sprout like grass, and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.

    Full study and all 9 verses →
  • רָבָה râbâhbe, or become, much, many, greattranslated this way 2 times of its 219 uses · Strong’s H7235Verb  ·  Translated: multiply 39, multiplied 23, many 15, much 10

    Proverbs 28:28 When the wicked come to power, people hide themselves; but when they perish, the righteous flourish.

    Proverbs 29:2 When the righteous flourish, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.

    Full study and all 207 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.