Word study

Fly

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: flying, fly, flies. 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 “fly” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עוּף ûphflytranslated this way 17 times of its 26 uses · Strong’s H5774Verb  ·  Translated: flying 5, fly 4, fly away 4, flies 3

    Genesis 1:20 And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.”

    Deuteronomy 4:17 of any beast that is on the earth or bird that flies in the air,

    Full study and all 25 verses →
  • עוֹף ôphflying creatures, fowl, insectstranslated this way 4 times of its 71 uses · Strong’s H5775Noun  ·  Translated: birds 46, bird 16, flying 4

    Leviticus 11:20 All flying insects that walk on all fours are detestable to you.

    Deuteronomy 14:19 All flying insects are unclean for you; they may not be eaten.

    Full study and all 70 verses →
  • עָרֹב ârôbswarmtranslated this way 2 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H6157Noun  ·  Translated: swarms 6, flies 1, swarms of flies 1, insects 1

    Exodus 8:21 But if you will not let My people go, I will send swarms of flies upon you and your officials and your people and your houses. The houses of the Egyptians and even the ground where they stand will be full of flies.

    Psalm 78:45 He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • זְבוּב zebûbflytranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2070Noun  ·  Translated: flies 2

    Ecclesiastes 10:1 As dead flies bring a stench to the perfumer’s oil, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

    Isaiah 7:18 On that day the LORD will whistle to the flies at the farthest streams of the Nile and to the bees in the land of Assyria.

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πέτομαι pétomaiI flytranslated this way 4 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s G4072Verb  ·  Translated: flying 3, flight 1, fly 1

    Revelation 8:13 And as I observed, I heard an eagle flying overhead, calling in a loud voice, “Woe! Woe! Woe to those who dwell on the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the remaining three angels!”

    Revelation 12:14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle to fly from the presence of the serpent to her place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.

    Full study and all 5 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.

What the Bible says about fly: passages by topic →

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.