Word study

Grievous

6 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חָלָה châlâhbe weak, sicktranslated this way 5 times of its 75 uses · Strong’s H2470Verb  ·  Translated: ill 8, sick 8, grievous 5, sought 4

    Ecclesiastes 5:13 There is a grievous evil I have seen under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner,

    Jeremiah 10:19 Woe to me because of my brokenness; my wound is grievous! But I said, “This is truly my sickness, and I must bear it.”

    Full study and all 73 verses →
  • כָּבַד kâbadbe heavy, weighty, burdensome, honouredtranslated this way 1 time of its 109 uses · Strong’s H3513Verb  ·  Translated: honor 19, honored 11, heavy 10, hardened 6

    Genesis 18:20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Because their sin is so grievous,

    Full study and all 105 verses →
  • רַע rabad, eviltranslated this way 1 time of its 651 uses · Strong’s H7451Adjective  ·  Translated: evil 263, disaster 72, harm 38, wicked 31

    Ecclesiastes 2:17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

    Full study and all 615 verses →
  • חֳלִי chŏlîsicknesstranslated this way 1 time of its 22 uses · Strong’s H2483Noun  ·  Translated: sickness 7, illness 5, disease 3

    Ecclesiastes 6:2 God gives a man riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires; but God does not allow him to enjoy them. Instead, a stranger will enjoy them. This is futile and a grievous affliction.

    Full study and all 21 verses →
  • אָשַׁם âshamoffend, be guiltytranslated this way 1 time of its 33 uses · Strong’s H816Verb  ·  Translated: guilty 8, incur guilt 3, incurs guilt 2, guilt 2

    Ezekiel 25:12 This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because Edom acted vengefully against the house of Judah, and in so doing incurred grievous guilt,

    Full study and all 32 verses →
  • מָרַץ mâratsbe sicktranslated this way 1 time of its 4 uses · Strong’s H4834Verb  ·  Translated: called down bitter 1, painful 1, provokes 1, grievous 1

    Micah 2:10 Arise and depart, for this is not your place of rest, because its defilement brings destruction— a grievous destruction!

    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.

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.