Word study

Fragrant

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • סַם samspicetranslated this way 15 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s H5561Noun  ·  Translated: fragrant 14, fragrant spices 1

    Exodus 25:6 olive oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense;

    Leviticus 4:7 The priest must then put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense that is before the LORD in the Tent of Meeting. And he is to pour out the rest of the bull’s blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

    Full study and all 15 verses →
  • בֶּשֶׂם besemspice, balsam, balsam-treetranslated this way 2 times of its 29 uses · Strong’s H1314Noun  ·  Translated: spices 23, fragrant 2, well as spices 1, perfumes 1

    Exodus 30:23 “Take the finest spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half that amount (250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant cane,

    Full study and all 25 verses →
  • קְטֹרֶת qeṭôrethsmoke, odour of (burning) sacrifice, incensetranslated this way 2 times of its 60 uses · Strong’s H7004Noun  ·  Translated: incense 55, fragrant blend of incense 1, add incense 1, offered the incense 1

    Exodus 30:35 and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy.

    Psalm 66:15 I will offer You fatlings as burnt offerings, with the fragrant smoke of rams; I will offer bulls and goats. Selah

    Full study and all 58 verses →
  • נִיחוֹחַ nîchôacha quieting, soothing, tranquillizingtranslated this way 2 times of its 43 uses · Strong’s H5207Noun  ·  Translated: pleasing 41, fragrant 2

    Ezekiel 6:13 Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and leafy oak— the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.

    Ezekiel 20:28 When I brought them into the land that I swore to give them and they saw any high hill or leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices, presented offerings that provoked Me, sent up their fragrant incense, and poured out their drink offerings.

    Full study and all 43 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • εὐωδία euōdíaa sweet smelltranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G2175Noun  ·  Translated: fragrant 2, sweet aroma 1

    Ephesians 5:2 and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God.

    Philippians 4:18 I have all I need and more, now that I have received your gifts from Epaphroditus. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.

    Full study and all 3 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.