Word study

Larger

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רַב rabmuch, many, greattranslated this way 7 times of its 445 uses · Strong’s H7227Adjective  ·  Translated: many 171, great 65, captain 24, long 14

    Numbers 26:56 Each inheritance is to be divided by lot among the larger and smaller tribes.”

    Deuteronomy 7:1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations— the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—

    Full study and all 426 verses →
  • גָּדוֹל gâdôlgreattranslated this way 3 times of its 501 uses · Strong’s H1419Adjective  ·  Translated: great 262, large 33, high 20, loud 14

    Deuteronomy 1:28 Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying: ‘The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the heavens. We even saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’”

    Joshua 10:2 So Adoni-zedek and his people were greatly alarmed, because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities; it was larger than Ai, and all its men were mighty.

    Full study and all 477 verses →
  • רָבָה râbâhbe, or become, much, many, greattranslated this way 2 times of its 219 uses · Strong’s H7235Verb  ·  Translated: multiply 39, multiplied 23, many 15, much 10

    Genesis 43:34 When the portions were served to them from Joseph’s table, Benjamin’s portion was five times larger than any of the others. So they feasted and drank freely with Joseph.

    Numbers 33:54 And you are to divide the land by lot according to your clans. Give a larger inheritance to a larger clan and a smaller inheritance to a smaller one. Whatever falls to each one by lot will be his. You will receive an inheritance according to the tribes of your fathers.

    Full study and all 207 verses →
  • מִגְרָשׁ migrâshcommon, common-land, open landtranslated this way 1 time of its 51 uses · Strong’s H4054Noun  ·  Translated: pasturelands 38, pastureland 4, together with their pasturelands 4

    Numbers 35:5 You are also to measure two thousand cubits outside the city on the east, two thousand on the south, two thousand on the west, and two thousand on the north, with the city in the center. These areas will serve as larger pasturelands for the cities.

    Full study and all 51 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.