Word study
God fearing
1 Hebrew and 4 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “god-fearing”. 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 “god fearing” or one of its forms.
Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- יָרֵא yârêfeartranslated this way 1 time of its 65 uses · Strong’s H3373Adjective · Translated: fear 33, fears 10, feared 5, afraid 4Full study and all 64 verses →
Greek words (New Testament)
- εὐλαβής eulabḗscautious, pioustranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G2126Adjective · Translated: devout 2, God-fearing 2Full study and all 4 verses →
- σέβομαι sébomaiI reverence, worshiptranslated this way 2 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s G4576Verb · Translated: worship 3, worshiper 2, God-fearing 2, devout 1Full study and all 10 verses →
- φοβέω phobéōI fear, am terrifiedtranslated this way 1 time of its 94 uses · Strong’s G5399Verb · Translated: afraid 47, fear 23, fearing 4, terrified 3Full study and all 91 verses →
- θεός theósGod, a godtranslated this way 1 time of its 1,292 uses · Strong’s G2316Noun · Translated: God 1,187, God's 87, gods 8, godly 3Full study and all 1,142 verses →
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.