Word study

Furious

7 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חָרָה chârâhburn, be kindledtranslated this way 7 times of its 89 uses · Strong’s H2734Verb  ·  Translated: burned 26, angry 15, kindled 11, furious 6

    Numbers 22:27 When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam, and he became furious and beat her with his staff.

    1 Samuel 18:8 And Saul was furious and resented this song. “They have ascribed tens of thousands to David,” he said, “but only thousands to me. What more can he have but the kingdom?”

    Full study and all 87 verses →
  • חֵמָה chêmâhheat, ragetranslated this way 4 times of its 121 uses · Strong’s H2534Noun  ·  Translated: wrath 69, fury 22, venom 5, rage 4

    Isaiah 34:2 The LORD is angry with all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them over to slaughter.

    Isaiah 42:25 So He poured out on them His furious anger and the fierceness of battle. It enveloped them in flames, but they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.

    Full study and all 114 verses →
  • קָצַף qâtsaphbe wrothtranslated this way 1 time of its 33 uses · Strong’s H7107Verb  ·  Translated: angry 18, grew angry 2, provoked 2

    Esther 1:12 Queen Vashti, however, refused to come at the king’s command brought by his eunuchs. And the king became furious, and his anger burned within him.

    Full study and all 32 verses →
  • עָבַר âbarpass over, through, by, pass ontranslated this way 1 time of its 542 uses · Strong’s H5674Verb  ·  Translated: pass 62, crossed 57, cross 52, passed 35Full study and all 487 verses →
  • אַף aphnostril, nose, face, angertranslated this way 1 time of its 243 uses · Strong’s H639Noun  ·  Translated: anger 165, facedown 14, nostrils 11, nose 10Full study and all 238 verses →
  • קְצַף qetsaphbe wrothtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H7108Verb  ·  Translated: furious 1

    Daniel 2:12 This response made the king so angry and furious that he gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • חֱמָא chĕmâragetranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2528Noun  ·  Translated: furious 1, rage 1

    Daniel 3:13 Then Nebuchadnezzar, furious with rage, summoned Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king,

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • θυμομαχέω thymomachéōI am furiously angry withtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G2371Verb  ·  Translated: furious dispute 1

    Acts 12:20 Now Herod was in a furious dispute with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they convened before him. Having secured the support of Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their region depended on the king’s country for food.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
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.