Word study
Foreigner
7 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: foreigner, foreigners. 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 “foreigner” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- גֵּר gêrsojournertranslated this way 75 times of its 92 uses · Strong’s H1616Noun · Translated: foreigner 51, foreigners 15, foreign resident 10, foreigner residing 2Full study and all 83 verses →
Genesis 23:4 “I am a foreigner and an outsider among you. Give me a burial site among you so that I can bury my dead.”
Exodus 2:22 And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”
- נׇכְרִי nokrîforeign, alientranslated this way 19 times of its 42 uses · Strong’s H5237Adjective · Translated: foreign 14, foreigner 13, foreigners 4, stranger 4Full study and all 42 verses →
Deuteronomy 14:21 You are not to eat any carcass; you may give it to the foreigner residing within your gates, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people belonging to the LORD your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
Judges 19:12 But his master replied, “We will not turn aside to the city of foreigners, where there are no Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah.”
- בֵּן bênsontranslated this way 17 times of its 4,587 uses · Strong’s H1121Noun · Translated: son 1,843, sons 892, Israelites 422, descendants 358Full study and all 3,473 verses →
Genesis 17:27 And all the men of Abraham’s household— both servants born in his household and those purchased from foreigners— were circumcised with him.
- זוּר zûrbe a strangertranslated this way 14 times of its 76 uses · Strong’s H2114Adjective · Translated: foreigners 13, strangers 12, outsider 9, stranger 8Full study and all 75 verses →
Job 15:19 to whom alone the land was given when no foreigner passed among them.
Isaiah 1:7 Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you — a desolation demolished by strangers.
- גּוּר gûrsojourntranslated this way 5 times of its 88 uses · Strong’s H1481Verb · Translated: residing 8, reside 6, living 6, dwell 6Full study and all 85 verses →
Genesis 19:9 “Get out of the way!” they replied. And they declared, “This one came here as a foreigner, and he is already acting like a judge! Now we will treat you worse than them.” And they pressed in on Lot and moved in to break down the door.
Exodus 6:4 I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land where they lived as foreigners.
- נֵכָר nêkârthat which is foreign, foreignnesstranslated this way 2 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H5236Noun · Translated: foreign 15, foreigner 1, foreigners 1, worthless foreign 1Full study and all 19 verses →
Genesis 17:12 Generation after generation, every male must be circumcised when he is eight days old, including those born in your household and those purchased from a foreigner — even those who are not your offspring.
Psalm 144:7 Reach down from on high; set me free and rescue me from the deep waters, from the grasp of foreigners,
- תּוֹשָׁב tôshâbsojournertranslated this way 2 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s H8453Noun · Translated: stranger 3, temporary resident 2Full study and all 13 verses →
Leviticus 25:6 Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year shall be food for you— for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, the hired hand or foreigner who stays with you,
Leviticus 25:45 You may also purchase them from the foreigners residing among you or their clans living among you who are born in your land. These may become your property.
Greek words (New Testament)
- πάροικος pároikosa stranger, foreignertranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G3941Adjective · Translated: foreigners 3, foreigner 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Acts 7:6 God told him that his descendants would be foreigners in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
Ephesians 2:19 Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household,
- βάρβαρος bárbarosa foreigner who speaks neither Greek nor Latintranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s G915Adjective · Translated: islanders 2, foreigner 2, non-greeks 1, barbarian 1Full study and all 5 verses →
1 Corinthians 14:11 If, then, I do not know the meaning of someone’s language, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me.
- ξένος xénosnew, novel, a foreignertranslated this way 2 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s G3581Adjective · Translated: stranger 4, strangers 4, foreigners 2Full study and all 14 verses →
Matthew 27:7 After conferring together, they used the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners.
Acts 17:21 Now all the Athenians and foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing more than hearing and articulating new ideas.
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.
What the Bible says about foreigner: 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.