Word study

Fuel

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • בָּעַר bâarburn, consumetranslated this way 3 times of its 93 uses · Strong’s H1197Verb  ·  Translated: purge 12, burn 10, burned 7, burning 6

    Isaiah 40:16 Lebanon is not sufficient for fuel, nor its animals enough for a burnt offering.

    Ezekiel 39:10 They will not gather wood from the countryside or cut it from the forests, for they will use the weapons for fuel. They will loot those who looted them and plunder those who plundered them, declares the Lord GOD.

    Full study and all 90 verses →
  • אׇכְלָה oklâhfood, eatingtranslated this way 3 times of its 18 uses · Strong’s H402Noun  ·  Translated: food 11, fuel 3, eat 2, devour 2

    Ezekiel 15:4 No, it is cast into the fire for fuel. The fire devours both ends, and the middle is charred. Can it be useful for anything?

    Ezekiel 15:6 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give up the people of Jerusalem.

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • מַאֲכֹלֶת maăkôlethfueltranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H3980Noun  ·  Translated: fuel 2

    Isaiah 9:5 For every trampling boot of battle and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.

    Isaiah 9:19 By the wrath of the LORD of Hosts the land is scorched, and the people are fuel for the fire. No man even spares his brother.

    Full study and all 2 verses →
  • אֵשׁ êshfiretranslated this way 2 times of its 313 uses · Strong’s H784Noun  ·  Translated: fire 256, like fire 11, fiery 8, burning 6Full study and all 289 verses →
  • דּוּר dûrcircle, balltranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H1754Preposition, Article  ·  Translated: ball 1, circle 1, pile the fuel 1

    Ezekiel 24:5 Take the choicest of the flock and pile the fuel beneath it. Bring it to a boil and cook the bones in it.’

    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.

What the Bible says about fuel: 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.