Word study

Invoke

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • זָכַר zâkarremembertranslated this way 5 times of its 227 uses · Strong’s H2142Verb  ·  Translated: remember 122, remembered 35, recorder 9, remembers 6

    Exodus 23:13 Pay close attention to everything I have said to you. You must not invoke the names of other gods; they must not be heard on your lips.

    2 Samuel 14:11 “Please,” she replied, “may the king invoke the LORD your God to prevent the avenger of blood from increasing the devastation, so that my son may not be destroyed!” “As surely as the LORD lives,” he vowed, “not a hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.”

    Full study and all 221 verses →
  • בָּרַךְ bârakkneel, blesstranslated this way 2 times of its 323 uses · Strong’s H1288Verb  ·  Translated: blessed 155, bless 114, blesses 13, pronounce blessings 3

    Deuteronomy 29:19 because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, ‘I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.

    Isaiah 65:16 Whoever invokes a blessing in the land will do so by the God of truth, and whoever takes an oath in the land will swear by the God of truth. For the former troubles will be forgotten and hidden from My sight.

    Full study and all 289 verses →
  • קָרָא qârâcall, proclaim, readtranslated this way 1 time of its 709 uses · Strong’s H7121Verb  ·  Translated: called 211, call 104, named 58, summoned 50Full study and all 663 verses →
  • שָׁבַע shâbasweartranslated this way 1 time of its 185 uses · Strong’s H7650Verb  ·  Translated: swore 43, sworn 32, swear 28, swore an oath 12

    Joshua 6:26 At that time Joshua invoked this solemn oath: “Cursed before the LORD is the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho; at the cost of his firstborn he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates.”

    Full study and all 175 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ὀνομάζω onomázōI give a name to, mentiontranslated this way 1 time of its 10 uses · Strong’s G3687Verb  ·  Translated: designated 2, named 2

    Acts 19:13 Now there were some itinerant Jewish exorcists who tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those with evil spirits. They would say, “I command you by Jesus, whom Paul proclaims.”

    Full study and all 10 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.