Word study
Four
3 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: four, fours. 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 “four” 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)
- אַרְבַּע arbafourtranslated this way 169 times of its 247 uses · Strong’s H702Number · Translated: four 161, fourteenth 20, fourteen 17, fourth 5Full study and all 218 verses →
Genesis 2:10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it branched into four headwaters:
Exodus 22:1 “If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters or sells it, he must repay five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.
- אַרְבַּע arbafourtranslated this way 8 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H703Number · Translated: four 8Full study and all 6 verses →
Ezra 6:17 For the dedication of the house of God they offered a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and a sin offering for all Israel of twelve male goats, one for each tribe of Israel.
Daniel 3:25 “Look!” he exclaimed. “I see four men, unbound and unharmed, walking around in the fire — and the fourth looks like a son of the gods!”
- רְבִיעִי rebîîfourthtranslated this way 2 times of its 56 uses · Strong’s H7243Number · Translated: fourth 42, quarter 8, four generations 2Full study and all 54 verses →
1 Kings 6:33 In the same way he made four-sided doorposts of olive wood for the sanctuary entrance.
2 Kings 10:30 Nevertheless, the LORD said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in My sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in My heart, four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.”
Greek words (New Testament)
- τέσσαρες téssaresfourtranslated this way 29 times of its 30 uses · Strong’s G5064Adjective · Translated: four 29, by 1Full study and all 28 verses →
Matthew 24:31 And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
Mark 2:3 Then a paralytic was brought to Him, carried by four men.
- τετρακισχίλιοι tetrakischílioifour thousandtranslated this way 5 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s G5070Adjective · Translated: four thousand 5Full study and all 5 verses →
Matthew 15:38 A total of four thousand men were fed, besides women and children.
Mark 8:9 And about four thousand men were present . And when Jesus had dismissed the crowd,
- τετρακόσιοι tetrakósioifour hundredtranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G5071Adjective · Translated: four hundred 2, 450 1, 430 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Acts 5:36 Some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men joined him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing.
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.
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.