Word study

Harder

3 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • 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

    Exodus 5:9 Make the work harder on the men so they will be occupied and pay no attention to these lies.”

    Full study and all 105 verses →
  • חָזַק châzaqbe or grow firm, strong, strengthentranslated this way 1 time of its 290 uses · Strong’s H2388Verb  ·  Translated: strong 37, made repairs 22, strengthened 16, repaired 15

    Jeremiah 5:3 O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

    Full study and all 264 verses →
  • חָזָק châzâqstrong, stout, mightytranslated this way 1 time of its 55 uses · Strong’s H2389Adjective  ·  Translated: mighty 20, strong 18, powerful 2, hard 2

    Ezekiel 3:9 I will make your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or dismayed at their presence, even though they are a rebellious house.”

    Full study and all 53 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • μᾶλλον mâllonmore, rathertranslated this way 1 time of its 64 uses · Strong’s G3123Adverb  ·  Translated: more 30, rather 16, Instead 5, louder 2

    John 5:18 Because of this, the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him. Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

    Full study and all 62 verses →
  • περισσός perissósabundant, greater, vehemently, advantagetranslated this way 1 time of its 21 uses · Strong’s G4053Adjective  ·  Translated: more 5, greater 4

    1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not in vain. No, I worked harder than all of them — yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

    Full study and all 20 verses →
  • περισσῶς perissōsgreatly, exceedinglytranslated this way 1 time of its 10 uses · Strong’s G4057Adverb  ·  Translated: louder 2, more 2

    2 Corinthians 11:23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am speaking as if I were out of my mind.) I am so much more: in harder labor, in more imprisonments, in worse beatings, in frequent danger of death.

    Full study and all 9 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.