Word study

Hurry

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: hurried, hurry, hurrying, hurries. 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 “hurry” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מָהַר mâharhastentranslated this way 15 times of its 66 uses · Strong’s H4116Verb  ·  Translated: quickly 20, hurried 9, Hurry 6, swift 4

    Genesis 18:6 So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Prepare three seahs of fine flour, knead it, and bake some bread.”

    Joshua 4:10 Now the priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until the people had completed everything the LORD had commanded Joshua to tell them, just as Moses had directed Joshua. The people hurried across,

    Full study and all 61 verses →
  • חוּשׁ chûshhaste, make hastetranslated this way 5 times of its 18 uses · Strong’s H2363Verb  ·  Translated: hurry 4, come quickly 3

    Psalm 40:13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me; hurry, O LORD, to help me.

    Psalm 55:8 I would hurry to my shelter, far from this raging tempest.”

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • חָפַז châphazbe in trepidation, hurry, or alarmtranslated this way 3 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H2648Verb  ·  Translated: hurrying 2, alarm 2, alarmed 1, haste 1

    1 Samuel 23:26 Saul was proceeding along one side of the mountain, and David and his men along the other side. Even though David was hurrying to get away, Saul and his men were closing in on David and his men to capture them.

    2 Samuel 4:4 And Jonathan son of Saul had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the report about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but as she was hurrying to escape, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.

    Full study and all 8 verses →
  • רוּץ rûtsruntranslated this way 3 times of its 103 uses · Strong’s H7323Verb  ·  Translated: ran 22, run 21, guards 11, couriers 6

    1 Samuel 17:17 One day Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp.

    Song of Solomon 1:4 Take me away with you— let us hurry! May the king bring me to his chambers. We will rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine. It is only right that they adore you.

    Full study and all 92 verses →
  • אוּץ ûtspress, be pressed, make hastetranslated this way 2 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H213Verb  ·  Translated: haste 2

    Genesis 19:15 At daybreak the angels hurried Lot along, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.”

    Proverbs 19:2 Even zeal is no good without knowledge, and he who hurries his footsteps misses the mark.

    Full study and all 9 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • σπεύδω speúdōI hasten, desire earnestlytranslated this way 5 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s G4692Verb  ·  Translated: hurry 3, hurried 2, hasten 1

    Luke 2:16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the Baby, who was lying in the manger.

    Acts 20:16 Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus to avoid spending time in the province of Asia, because he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem, if possible, by the day of Pentecost.

    Full study and all 6 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.