Word study
Grave
2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: grave, graves. 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 “grave” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- קֶבֶר qebergrave, sepulchretranslated this way 28 times of its 66 uses · Strong’s H6913Noun · Translated: tomb 19, grave 15, graves 13, tombs 8Full study and all 61 verses →
Exodus 14:11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us into the wilderness to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?
Numbers 19:16 Anyone in the open field who touches someone who has been killed by the sword or has died of natural causes, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.
- קְבוּרָה qebûrâhgrave, burialtranslated this way 4 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s H6900Noun · Translated: tomb 5, grave 3, burial 2, with them 1Full study and all 12 verses →
Genesis 35:20 Jacob set up a pillar on her grave; it marks Rachel’s tomb to this day.
Deuteronomy 34:6 And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab facing Beth-peor, and no one to this day knows the location of his grave.
Greek words (New Testament)
- μνημεῖον mnēmeîona tomb, sepulchertranslated this way 2 times of its 39 uses · Strong’s G3419Noun · Translated: tomb 31, tombs 5, graves 2, monuments 1Full study and all 36 verses →
Luke 11:44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without even noticing.”
John 5:28 Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice
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.
What the Bible says about grave: 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.