Word study

Hungry

2 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רָעֵב râêbhungrytranslated this way 15 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H7457Adjective  ·  Translated: hungry 11, starving 2

    2 Samuel 17:29 honey, curds, sheep, and cheese from the herd for David and his people to eat. For they said, “The people have become hungry, exhausted, and thirsty in the wilderness.”

    Job 5:5 The hungry consume his harvest, taking it even from the thorns, and the thirsty pant after his wealth.

    Full study and all 19 verses →
  • רָעֵב râêbbe hungrytranslated this way 6 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s H7456Verb  ·  Translated: hunger 4, hungry 2, go hungry 2

    Psalm 34:10 Young lions go lacking and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

    Proverbs 10:3 The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry, but He denies the craving of the wicked.

    Full study and all 13 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πεινάω peináōI am hungry, needytranslated this way 18 times of its 23 uses · Strong’s G3983Verb  ·  Translated: hungry 17, hunger 4, never hunger 1, remains hungry 1

    Matthew 4:2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.

    Mark 2:25 Jesus replied, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?

    Full study and all 23 verses →
  • νῆστις nēstisfasting, without foodtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G3523Adjective  ·  Translated: hungry 2

    Matthew 15:32 Then Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, “I have compassion for this crowd, because they have already been with Me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may faint along the way.”

    Mark 8:3 If I send them home hungry, they will faint along the way. For some of them have come a great distance.”

    Full study and all 2 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.