Word study

Homeland

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מָקוֹם mâqômstanding, spot, conditiontranslated this way 4 times of its 381 uses · Strong’s H4725Noun  ·  Translated: place 279, home 16, places 11, wherever 7

    Genesis 30:25 Now after Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me on my way so I can return to my homeland.

    Numbers 24:25 Then Balaam arose and returned to his homeland, and Balak also went on his way.

    Full study and all 364 verses →
  • אֲדָמָה ădâmâhground, landtranslated this way 3 times of its 220 uses · Strong’s H127Noun  ·  Translated: land 121, ground 38, earth 34, soil 12

    2 Kings 17:23 Finally, the LORD removed Israel from His presence, as He had declared through all His servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their homeland into Assyria, where they are to this day.

    Amos 7:11 for this is what Amos has said: ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their homeland.’”

    Full study and all 207 verses →
  • גְּבוּל gebûlborder, boundary, territorytranslated this way 2 times of its 209 uses · Strong’s H1366Noun  ·  Translated: border 76, territory 55, borders 15, boundary 9

    1 Samuel 6:9 but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”

    Joel 3:6 You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, to send them far from their homeland.

    Full study and all 185 verses →
  • נָוֶה nâvehabode of shepherd, or flockstranslated this way 2 times of its 37 uses · Strong’s H5116Noun  ·  Translated: pasture 11, dwelling 3, dwelling place 2, home 2

    Psalm 79:7 for they have devoured Jacob and devastated his homeland.

    Jeremiah 10:25 Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, and on the families that do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have consumed him and finished him off; they have devastated his homeland.

    Full study and all 36 verses →
  • אֶרֶץ eretsearth, landtranslated this way 1 time of its 2,375 uses · Strong’s H776Noun  ·  Translated: land 1,483, earth 564, ground 119, lands 41Full study and all 2,120 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.