Word study

Hunger

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רָעֵב râêbbe hungrytranslated this way 6 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s H7456Verb  ·  Translated: hunger 4, hungry 2, go hungry 2

    Genesis 41:55 When extreme hunger came to all the land of Egypt and the people cried out to Pharaoh for food, he told all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.”

    Deuteronomy 8:3 He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

    Full study and all 13 verses →
  • רָעָב rââbfamine, hungertranslated this way 4 times of its 100 uses · Strong’s H7458Noun  ·  Translated: famine 89, hunger 4

    Deuteronomy 32:24 They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust.

    Nehemiah 9:15 In their hunger You gave them bread from heaven; in their thirst You brought them water from the rock. You told them to go in and possess the land that You had sworn to give them.

    Full study and all 87 verses →
  • רְעָבוֹן reâbônhunger, lack of food, faminetranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H7459Noun  ·  Translated: relieve the hunger 1, food to relieve the hunger 1, famine 1

    Genesis 42:19 If you are honest, leave one of your brothers in custody while the rest of you go and take back grain to relieve the hunger of your households.

    Genesis 42:33 Then the man who is lord of the land said to us, ‘This is how I will know whether you are honest: Leave one brother with me, take food to relieve the hunger of your households, and go.

    Full study and all 3 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πεινάω peináōI am hungry, needytranslated this way 5 times of its 23 uses · Strong’s G3983Verb  ·  Translated: hungry 17, hunger 4, never hunger 1, remains hungry 1

    Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

    Luke 6:21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

    Full study and all 23 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.

What the Bible says about hunger: passages by topic →

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.