Word study

Jealous

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “jealous”. 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 “jealous” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • קָנָא qânâbe jealous, zealoustranslated this way 9 times of its 32 uses · Strong’s H7065Verb  ·  Translated: jealous 6, envy 6, envied 4, zealous 4

    Genesis 37:11 And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept in mind what he had said.

    Numbers 11:29 But Moses replied, “Are you jealous on my account? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would place His Spirit on them!”

    Full study and all 29 verses →
  • קַנָּא qannâjealoustranslated this way 6 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H7067Adjective  ·  Translated: jealous 6

    Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

    Deuteronomy 4:24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • קַנּוֹא qannôid.translated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H7072Adjective  ·  Translated: jealous 2

    Joshua 24:19 But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD, for He is a holy God; He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your rebellion or your sins.

    Nahum 1:2 The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and full of wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on His foes and reserves wrath for His enemies.

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ζηλόω zēlóōI am jealous, eager fortranslated this way 3 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s G2206Verb  ·  Translated: zealous 3, jealous 2, eagerly desire 2

    Acts 7:9 Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him

    2 Corinthians 11:2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. For I promised you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

    Full study and all 11 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.