Word study
Lengthen
2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: lengthen, lengthening. 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 “lengthen” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- נָטָה nâṭâhstretch out, spread out, extend, incline, bendtranslated this way 3 times of its 215 uses · Strong’s H5186Verb · Translated: incline 24, stretch 23, stretched 21, outstretched 19Full study and all 207 verses →
2 Kings 20:10 “It is easy for the shadow to lengthen ten steps,” answered Hezekiah, “but not for it to go back ten steps.”
Psalm 102:11 My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.
- אָרַךְ ârakbe longtranslated this way 2 times of its 33 uses · Strong’s H748Verb · Translated: prolong 6, live long 5, long 3, lingered 2Full study and all 33 verses →
Ecclesiastes 8:13 Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.
Isaiah 54:2 “Enlarge the site of your tent, stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, do not hold back. Lengthen your ropes and drive your stakes in deep.
Greek words (New Testament)
- μεγαλύνω megalýnōI enlarge, magnify, extoltranslated this way 1 time of its 8 uses · Strong’s G3170Verb · Translated: lengthen 1, magnifies 1, shown her great 1, regarded them highly 1Full study and all 8 verses →
Matthew 23:5 All their deeds are done for men to see. They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.