Word study
Handful
5 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: handful, handfuls. 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 “handful” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- מְלֹא melôfulness, that which fillstranslated this way 6 times of its 33 uses · Strong’s H4393Noun · Translated: everything 6, full 4, fills 4, handful 3Full study and all 31 verses →
Exodus 9:8 Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the furnace; in the sight of Pharaoh, Moses is to toss it into the air.
Leviticus 5:12 He is to bring it to the priest, who shall take a handful from it as a memorial portion and burn it on the altar atop the food offerings to the LORD; it is a sin offering.
- שֹׁעַל shôalhollow hand, handfultranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H8168Noun · Translated: handful 1, hollow of his hand 1, handfuls 1Full study and all 3 verses →
1 Kings 20:10 Then Ben-hadad sent another message to Ahab: “May the gods deal with me, and ever so severely, if enough dust remains of Samaria for each of my men to have a handful.”
Ezekiel 13:19 You have profaned Me among My people for handfuls of barley and scraps of bread. By lying to My people who would listen, you have killed those who should not have died and spared those who should not have lived.
- קָמַץ qâmatsenclose with the hand, grasptranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H7061Verb · Translated: take a handful 2, take 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Leviticus 2:2 and bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests. The priest shall take a handful of the flour and oil, together with all the frankincense, and burn this as a memorial portion on the altar, a food offering, a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
Numbers 5:26 Then the priest is to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial portion and burn it on the altar; after that he is to have the woman drink the water.
- קֹמֶץ qômetsclosed hand, fisttranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H7062Noun · Translated: bountifully 1, handful 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Leviticus 6:15 The priest is to remove a handful of fine flour and olive oil, together with all the frankincense from the grain offering, and burn the memorial portion on the altar as a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
- כַּף kaphhollow, or flat of the hand, palm, sole of foot, pantranslated this way 1 time of its 176 uses · Strong’s H3709Noun · Translated: hands 70, hand 32, dish 12, palm 9Full study and all 170 verses →
Leviticus 9:17 Next he presented the grain offering, took a handful of it, and burned it on the altar in addition to the morning’s burnt offering.
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.