Word study

Hunt

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: hunt, hunted, hunts, hunting. 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 “hunt” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • צוּד tsûdhunttranslated this way 10 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s H6679Verb  ·  Translated: hunt 7, hunted 2, ensnare 2

    Genesis 27:3 Take your weapons — your quiver and bow — and go out into the field to hunt some game for me.

    Leviticus 17:13 And if any Israelite or foreigner living among them hunts down a wild animal or bird that may be eaten, he must drain its blood and cover it with dirt.

    Full study and all 15 verses →
  • צַיִד tsayidhunting, gametranslated this way 1 time of its 19 uses · Strong’s H6718Noun  ·  Translated: game 8, hunter 3, provisions 2, food 2

    Genesis 27:30 As soon as Isaac had finished blessing him and Jacob had left his father’s presence, his brother Esau returned from the hunt.

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • נָדַח nâdachimpel, thrust, banishtranslated this way 1 time of its 54 uses · Strong’s H5080Verb  ·  Translated: banished 13, exiles 5, driven 4, banish 4

    Isaiah 13:14 Like a hunted gazelle, like a sheep without a shepherd, each will return to his own people, each will flee to his native land.

    Full study and all 53 verses →
  • רָדַף râdaphpursue, chase, persecutetranslated this way 1 time of its 142 uses · Strong’s H7291Verb  ·  Translated: pursued 36, pursue 35, pursues 9, pursuers 9

    1 Samuel 26:20 So do not let my blood fall to the ground far from the presence of the LORD. For the king of Israel has come out to look for a flea, like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.”

    Full study and all 135 verses →
  • צָדָה tsâdâhlie in waittranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H6658Verb  ·  Translated: lie in wait 1, hunting 1, laid waste 1

    1 Samuel 24:11 See, my father, look at the corner of your robe in my hand. For I cut it off, but I did not kill you. Know and see that there is no evil or rebellion in my hands. I have not sinned against you, even though you are hunting me down to take my life.

    Full study and all 3 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.