Word study
Habitation
4 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “habitation”. 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 “habitation” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- מָעוֹן mâôndwelling, habitationtranslated this way 3 times of its 18 uses · Strong’s H4583Noun · Translated: dwelling place 4, haunt 4, habitation 3, dwelling 2Full study and all 18 verses →
Deuteronomy 26:15 Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the land You have given us as You swore to our fathers— a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Psalm 68:5 A father of the fatherless and a defender of widows is God in His holy habitation.
- גּוּר gûrsojourntranslated this way 1 time of its 88 uses · Strong’s H1481Verb · Translated: residing 8, reside 6, living 6, dwell 6Full study and all 85 verses →
Job 28:4 Far from human habitation he cuts a shaft in places forgotten by the foot of man. Far from men he dangles and sways.
- זְבוּל zebûlelevation, height, lofty abodetranslated this way 1 time of its 5 uses · Strong’s H2073Noun · Translated: exalted 2, far from their lofty abode 1, habitation 1, places 1Full study and all 5 verses →
Isaiah 63:15 Look down from heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and might? Your yearning and compassion for me are restrained.
- שֶׁבֶת shebethseat, dwelling, placetranslated this way 1 time of its 4 uses · Strong’s H7675Noun · Translated: in 1, sit 1, reign 1, habitation 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Obadiah 1:3 The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’
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.