Word study
Footsteps
2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “footsteps”. 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 “footsteps” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- רֶגֶל regelfoottranslated this way 2 times of its 213 uses · Strong’s H7272Noun · Translated: feet 128, foot 45, legs 8, times 4Full study and all 203 verses →
2 Kings 6:32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door to keep him out. Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”
Proverbs 19:2 Even zeal is no good without knowledge, and he who hurries his footsteps misses the mark.
- אָשֻׁר âshurstep, goingtranslated this way 1 time of its 9 uses · Strong’s H838Noun · Translated: steps 6, tracks 1, tracked 1, made my footsteps 1Full study and all 9 verses →
Psalm 40:2 He lifted me up from the pit of despair, out of the miry clay; He set my feet upon a rock, and made my footsteps firm.
Greek words (New Testament)
- ἴχνος íchnosa track, footsteptranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G2487Noun · Translated: footsteps 3Full study and all 3 verses →
Romans 4:12 And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
2 Corinthians 12:18 I urged Titus to visit you, and I sent our brother with him. Did Titus exploit you in any way? Did we not walk in the same Spirit and follow in the same footsteps?
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.