Word study

Hook

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: hooks, hook. 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 “hook” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • וָו vâvhook, pin or pegtranslated this way 13 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s H2053Noun  ·  Translated: hooks 13

    Exodus 26:32 Hang it with gold hooks on four posts of acacia wood, overlaid with gold and standing on four silver bases.

    Exodus 26:37 Make five posts of acacia wood for the curtain, overlay them with gold, use hooks of gold, and cast five bronze bases for them.’’

    Full study and all 13 verses →
  • חָח châchhook, ring, fettertranslated this way 6 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H2397Noun  ·  Translated: hooks 4, hook 2, brooches 1

    2 Kings 19:28 Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’

    Isaiah 37:29 Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • מַזְמֵרָה mazmêrâhpruning-knifetranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H4211Noun  ·  Translated: pruning hooks 3, pruning knife 1

    Isaiah 2:4 Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war.

    Joel 3:10 Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong!’

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • חַכָּה chakkâhhooktranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H2443Noun  ·  Translated: hook 3

    Job 41:1 “Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook or tie down his tongue with a rope?

    Isaiah 19:8 Then the fishermen will mourn, all who cast a hook into the Nile will lament, and those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • חוֹחַ chôachbrier, brambletranslated this way 2 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s H2336Noun  ·  Translated: thistle 4, briers 2, thorns 2

    2 Chronicles 33:11 So the LORD brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

    Job 41:2 Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?

    Full study and all 10 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.