Word study

Husband

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: husband, husbands. 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 “husband” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • אִישׁ îshmantranslated this way 65 times of its 1,399 uses · Strong’s H376Noun  ·  Translated: man 650, men 198, one 79, each 79

    Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

    Leviticus 21:3 or his unmarried sister who is near to him, since she has no husband.

    Full study and all 1,278 verses →
  • בַּעַל baalowner, lordtranslated this way 9 times of its 76 uses · Strong’s H1167Noun  ·  Translated: owner 15, leaders 15, husband 6, bound 2

    Exodus 21:22 If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands and as the court allows.

    Deuteronomy 24:4 then the husband who divorced her first may not remarry her after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the LORD. You must not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

    Full study and all 72 verses →
  • בָּעַל bâalmarry, rule overtranslated this way 4 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s H1166Verb  ·  Translated: husband 4, marries 3, ruled 2

    Deuteronomy 21:13 and put aside the clothing of her captivity. After she has lived in your house a full month and mourned her father and mother, you may have relations with her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

    Isaiah 54:1 “Shout for joy, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth in song and cry aloud, you who have never travailed; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the LORD.

    Full study and all 13 verses →
  • אֱנוֹשׁ ĕnôshman, mankindtranslated this way 4 times of its 470 uses · Strong’s H582Noun  ·  Translated: men 368, man 25, people 5, husbands 4

    Ruth 1:11 But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb to become your husbands?

    Full study and all 447 verses →
  • יָבָם yâbâmhusband's brothertranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2993Noun  ·  Translated: husband's brother 2Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀνήρ anḗra male human being, a mantranslated this way 49 times of its 183 uses · Strong’s G435Noun  ·  Translated: man 65, men 65, husband 37, husbands 12

    Matthew 1:16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

    Mark 10:12 And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

    Full study and all 165 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 husband: 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.