Word study

Garden

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: garden, gardens. 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 “garden” 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)

  • גַּן ganenclosure, gardentranslated this way 41 times of its 42 uses · Strong’s H1588Noun  ·  Translated: garden 34, like the garden 4, gardens 2, toward beth-haggan 1

    Genesis 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, where He placed the man He had formed.

    Deuteronomy 11:10 For the land that you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated on foot, like a vegetable garden.

    Full study and all 37 verses →
  • גַּנָּה gannâhgardentranslated this way 11 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s H1593Noun  ·  Translated: gardens 7, garden 2, like gardens 1, like a garden 1

    Numbers 24:6 They spread out like palm groves, like gardens beside a stream, like aloes the LORD has planted, like cedars beside the waters.

    Job 8:16 He is a well-watered plant in the sunshine, spreading its shoots over the garden.

    Full study and all 12 verses →
  • גִּנָּה ginnâhgardentranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H1594Noun  ·  Translated: garden 3, grove 1

    Esther 1:5 At the end of this time, in the garden court of the royal palace, the king held a seven-day feast for all the people in the citadel of Susa, from the least to the greatest.

    Esther 7:7 In his fury, the king arose from drinking his wine and went to the palace garden, while Haman stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life, for he realized that the king was planning a terrible fate for him.

    Full study and all 4 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • κῆπος kēposa gardentranslated this way 5 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s G2779Noun  ·  Translated: garden 5

    Luke 13:19 It is like a mustard seed that a man tossed into his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches.”

    John 18:1 After Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples across the Kidron Valley, where they entered a garden.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • λάχανον láchanonan herb, garden planttranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G3001Noun  ·  Translated: garden plants 2, herb 1, vegetables 1

    Matthew 13:32 Although it is the smallest of all seeds, yet it grows into the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

    Mark 4:32 But after it is planted, it grows to be the largest of all garden plants and puts forth great branches, so that the birds of the air nest in its shade.”

    Full study and all 4 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 garden: 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.