Word study

Hate

2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: hate, hated, hates, hating. 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 “hate” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שָׂנֵא sânêhatetranslated this way 109 times of its 143 uses · Strong’s H8130Verb  ·  Translated: hate 65, hated 23, hates 17, enemies 6

    Genesis 26:27 “Why have you come to me?” Isaac asked them. “You hated me and sent me away.”

    Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

    Full study and all 139 verses →
  • שִׂנְאָה sinâhhating, hatredtranslated this way 3 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H8135Noun  ·  Translated: hatred 9, hate 3, anyone maliciously 1, hateful 1

    Psalm 25:19 Consider my enemies, for they are many, and they hate me with vicious hatred.

    Ecclesiastes 9:1 So I took all this to heart and concluded that the righteous and the wise, as well as their deeds, are in God’s hands. Man does not know what lies ahead, whether love or hate.

    Full study and all 14 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • μισέω miséōI hate, detesttranslated this way 39 times of its 40 uses · Strong’s G3404Verb  ·  Translated: hate 13, hated 12, hates 12, hating 2

    Matthew 5:43 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘Hate your enemy.’

    Mark 13:13 You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.

    Full study and all 36 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.