Word study

Fourth

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “fourth”. 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 “fourth” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רְבִיעִי rebîîfourthtranslated this way 43 times of its 56 uses · Strong’s H7243Number  ·  Translated: fourth 42, quarter 8, four generations 2

    Genesis 1:19 And there was evening, and there was morning — the fourth day.

    Exodus 28:20 and in the fourth row a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper. Mount these stones in gold filigree settings.

    Full study and all 54 verses →
  • רְבִיעַי rebîayfourthtranslated this way 6 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H7244Number  ·  Translated: fourth 6

    Daniel 2:40 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; for iron shatters and crushes all things, and like iron that crushes all things, it will shatter and crush all the others.

    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!”

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • אַרְבַּע arbafourtranslated this way 5 times of its 247 uses · Strong’s H702Number  ·  Translated: four 161, fourteenth 20, fourteen 17, fourth 5

    1 Kings 22:41 In the fourth year of Ahab’s reign over Israel, Jehoshaphat son of Asa became king of Judah.

    1 Chronicles 24:18 the twenty-third to Delaiah, and the twenty-fourth to Maaziah.

    Full study and all 218 verses →
  • רִבֵּעַ ribbêapertaining to the fourthtranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H7256Noun  ·  Translated: fourth 3, fourth generations 1

    Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

    Numbers 14:18 ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.’

    Full study and all 4 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • τέταρτος tétartosfourthtranslated this way 9 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s G5067Adjective  ·  Translated: fourth 9, Four 1

    Matthew 14:25 During the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them, walking on the sea.

    Mark 6:48 He could see that the disciples were straining to row, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them, walking on the sea. He intended to pass by them,

    Full study and all 9 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.