Word study
Hollow
7 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: hollow, hollowed. 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 “hollow” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- נָבַב nâbabhollow outtranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H5014Verb · Translated: hollow 3, witless 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Exodus 27:8 Construct the altar with boards so that it is hollow. It is to be made just as you were shown on the mountain.
Jeremiah 52:21 Each pillar was eighteen cubits tall and twelve cubits in circumference; each was hollow, four fingers thick.
- מַכְתֵּשׁ maktêshmortartranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H4388Noun · Translated: hollow place 1, mortar 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Judges 15:19 So God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned, and he was revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, and it remains in Lehi to this day.
- שֹׁעַל shôalhollow hand, handfultranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H8168Noun · Translated: handful 1, hollow of his hand 1, handfuls 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Isaiah 40:12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on a scale and the hills with a balance?
- מַכְתֵּשׁ Maktêshmortartranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H4389Noun · Translated: Hollow 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Zephaniah 1:11 Wail, O dwellers of the Hollow, for all your merchants will be silenced; all who weigh out silver will be cut off.
- מְצֻלָּה metsullâhshadetranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H4699Noun · Translated: hollow 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Zechariah 1:8 I looked out into the night and saw a man riding on a red horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in the hollow, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.
- כָּרָה kârâhdigtranslated this way 1 time of its 14 uses · Strong’s H3738Verb · Translated: dug 8, digs 3, hollowed 1, cut 1Full study and all 14 verses →
Numbers 21:18 The princes dug the well; the nobles of the people hollowed it out with their scepters and with their staffs.” From the wilderness the Israelites went on to Mattanah,
- חָפַר châphardig, search fortranslated this way 1 time of its 21 uses · Strong’s H2658Verb · Translated: dug 11, search 2, spy 2Full study and all 21 verses →
Psalm 7:15 He has dug a hole and hollowed it out; he has fallen into a pit of his own making.
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.