Word study
Howl
4 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: howling, howl. 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 “howl” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- יְלֵל yelêlhowlingtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H3214Noun · Translated: howling 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Deuteronomy 32:10 He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.
- אֹחַ ôachhowlertranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H255Noun · Translated: howling creatures 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Isaiah 13:21 But desert creatures will lie down there, and howling creatures will fill her houses. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will leap about.
- עָנָה ânâhanswer, respondtranslated this way 1 time of its 317 uses · Strong’s H6030Verb · Translated: answered 79, answer 75, replied 47, respond 14Full study and all 308 verses →
Isaiah 13:22 Hyenas will howl in her fortresses and jackals in her luxurious palaces. Babylon’s time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged.
- עָשָׂה âsâhdo, maketranslated this way 1 time of its 2,478 uses · Strong’s H6213Verb · Translated: done 292, made 265, make 143, did 112Full study and all 2,206 verses →
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.