Word study

Invite

2 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: invited, invite, invites, inviting. 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 “invite” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • קָרָא qârâcall, proclaim, readtranslated this way 21 times of its 709 uses · Strong’s H7121Verb  ·  Translated: called 211, call 104, named 58, summoned 50

    Genesis 31:54 Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his relatives to eat a meal. And after they had eaten, they spent the night on the mountain.

    Exodus 2:20 “So where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.”

    Full study and all 663 verses →
  • בּוֹא bôcome in, come, go in, gotranslated this way 2 times of its 2,442 uses · Strong’s H935Verb  ·  Translated: come 358, came 298, bring 209, brought 201Full study and all 2,217 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • καλέω kaléōI call, invite, nametranslated this way 17 times of its 144 uses · Strong’s G2564Verb  ·  Translated: called 84, invited 13, call 11, calls 7

    Matthew 22:3 He sent his servants to call those he had invited to the banquet, but they refused to come.

    Luke 7:39 When the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, He would know who this is and what kind of woman is touching Him — for she is a sinner!”

    Full study and all 136 verses →
  • ἐρωτάω erōtáōI ask, question, requesttranslated this way 2 times of its 63 uses · Strong’s G2065Verb  ·  Translated: ask 20, asked 18, question 3, asking 3

    Luke 7:36 Then one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to eat with him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.

    Luke 11:37 As Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee invited Him to dine with him; so He went in and reclined at the table.

    Full study and all 61 verses →
  • παρακαλέω parakaléōI summon, entreat, admonish, comforttranslated this way 2 times of its 106 uses · Strong’s G3870Verb  ·  Translated: urge 20, encourage 14, begged 13, urged 7

    Acts 8:31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

    Acts 28:14 There we found some brothers who invited us to spend the week with them. And so we came to Rome.

    Full study and all 104 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.