Word study
Hush
3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: hushed, hush. 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 “hush” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- חָבָא châbâwithdraw, hidetranslated this way 1 time of its 33 uses · Strong’s H2244Verb · Translated: hid 10, hidden 8, hiding 6, hide 3Full study and all 33 verses →
Job 29:10 The voices of the nobles were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roofs of their mouths.
- שָׁקַט shâqaṭbe quiet, undisturbedtranslated this way 1 time of its 40 uses · Strong’s H8252Verb · Translated: quiet 10, rest 8, peace 6, still 3Full study and all 40 verses →
Job 37:17 You whose clothes get hot when the land lies hushed under the south wind,
- חָשָׁה châshâhbe silent, inactive, stilltranslated this way 1 time of its 15 uses · Strong’s H2814Verb · Translated: silent 4, keep silent 3, speak 2Full study and all 15 verses →
Psalm 107:29 He calmed the storm to a whisper, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Greek words (New Testament)
- σιγή sigḗsilencetranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s G4602Noun · Translated: hush 1, silence 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Acts 21:40 Having received permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the crowd. A great hush came over the crowd, and he addressed them in Hebrew:
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.