Word study

Incense

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • קְטֹרֶת qeṭôrethsmoke, odour of (burning) sacrifice, incensetranslated this way 59 times of its 60 uses · Strong’s H7004Noun  ·  Translated: incense 55, fragrant blend of incense 1, add incense 1, offered the incense 1

    Exodus 25:6 olive oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense;

    Leviticus 4:7 The priest must then put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense that is before the LORD in the Tent of Meeting. And he is to pour out the rest of the bull’s blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

    Full study and all 58 verses →
  • קָטַר qâṭarmake sacrifices smoke, send them up in smoketranslated this way 55 times of its 114 uses · Strong’s H6999Verb  ·  Translated: burn 33, burned incense 21, burn incense 14, burning incense 13

    1 Kings 3:3 And Solomon loved the LORD and walked in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

    2 Kings 12:3 Nevertheless, the high places were not removed; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.

    Full study and all 112 verses →
  • חַמָּן chammânsun-pillartranslated this way 8 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H2553Noun  ·  Translated: incense altars 8

    Leviticus 26:30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you.

    2 Chronicles 14:5 He also removed the high places and incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and under him the kingdom was at peace.

    Full study and all 8 verses →
  • רֵיחַ rêachscent, odourtranslated this way 2 times of its 56 uses · Strong’s H7381Noun  ·  Translated: aroma 41, fragrance 8, incense 2

    Ezekiel 6:13 Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and leafy oak— the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.

    Ezekiel 20:28 When I brought them into the land that I swore to give them and they saw any high hill or leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices, presented offerings that provoked Me, sent up their fragrant incense, and poured out their drink offerings.

    Full study and all 54 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • θυμίαμα thymíamaincensetranslated this way 6 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s G2368Noun  ·  Translated: incense 5, incense offering 1

    Luke 1:10 And at the hour of the incense offering, the whole congregation was praying outside.

    Revelation 5:8 When He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

    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.

What the Bible says about incense: 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.