Word study

Jew

2 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: jews, jew. 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 “jew” 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)

  • יְהוּדִי YehûdîJewishtranslated this way 69 times of its 75 uses · Strong’s H3064Noun  ·  Translated: Jews 60, Jew 9, Jewish 3, men of judah 1

    Nehemiah 1:2 Hanani, one of my brothers, arrived with men from Judah. So I questioned them about the remnant of the Jews who had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.

    Esther 3:4 Day after day they warned him, but he would not comply. So they reported it to Haman to see whether Mordecai’s behavior would be tolerated, since he had told them he was a Jew.

    Full study and all 69 verses →
  • יְהוּדָאִי YehûdâîJehudaite, Jewtranslated this way 8 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H3062Noun  ·  Translated: Jews 8, Jewish 1

    Ezra 4:12 Let it be known to the king that the Jews who came from you to us have returned to Jerusalem and are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. They are restoring its walls and repairing its foundations.

    Daniel 3:8 At this time some astrologers came forward and maliciously accused the Jews,

    Full study and all 9 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • Ἰουδαῖος IoudaîosJewishtranslated this way 164 times of its 191 uses · Strong’s G2453Adjective  ·  Translated: Jews 145, Jewish 21, Jew 19

    Matthew 2:2 asking, “Where is the One who has been born King of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

    Mark 7:3 Now in holding to the tradition of the elders, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat until they wash their hands ceremonially.

    Full study and all 182 verses →
  • κατατίθημι katatíthēmiI lay down, deposittranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G2698Verb  ·  Translated: Jews a favor 2

    Acts 24:27 After two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus. And wishing to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison.

    Acts 25:9 But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem to stand trial before me on these charges?”

    Full study and all 2 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.