Word study
Letter
5 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: letter, letters. 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 “letter” 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)
- סֵפֶר sêphermissive, document, writing, booktranslated this way 27 times of its 174 uses · Strong’s H5612Noun · Translated: Book 107, scroll 19, letter 14, letters 13Full study and all 168 verses →
2 Samuel 11:14 The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
1 Kings 21:8 Then Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and sent them to the elders and nobles who lived with Naboth in his city.
- אִגֶּרֶת iggerethletter, letter-missivetranslated this way 10 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H107Noun · Translated: letters 6, letter 4Full study and all 10 verses →
2 Chronicles 30:1 Then Hezekiah sent word throughout all Israel and Judah, and he also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh inviting them to come to the house of the LORD in Jerusalem to keep the Passover of the LORD, the God of Israel.
Nehemiah 2:7 I also said to him, “If it pleases the king, may letters be given to me for the governors west of the Euphrates, so that they will grant me safe passage until I reach Judah.
- אִגְּרָא iggerâepistletranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H104Noun · Translated: letter 3Full study and all 3 verses →
Ezra 4:8 Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote the letter against Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes as follows:
Ezra 4:11 (This is the text of the letter they sent to him.) To King Artaxerxes, From your servants, the men west of the Euphrates:
- נִשְׁתְּוָן nishtevântranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H5407Noun · Translated: letter 2, written instructions 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Ezra 4:18 The letter you sent us has been translated and read in my presence.
Ezra 4:23 When the text of the letter from King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum, Shimshai the scribe, and their associates, they went immediately to the Jews in Jerusalem and forcibly stopped them.
- אֲשֶׁר ăsherparticle of relationtranslated this way 2 times of its 3,225 uses · Strong’s H834Pronoun · Translated: that 886, who 451, as 247, which 160Full study and all 2,844 verses →
Greek words (New Testament)
- ἐπιστολή epistolḗa letter, dispatch, epistletranslated this way 24 times of its 24 uses · Strong’s G1992Noun · Translated: letter 16, letters 8Full study and all 23 verses →
Acts 9:2 and requested letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any men or women belonging to the Way, he could bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem.
Romans 16:22 I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.
- γράμμα grámmaa letter, writings, learningtranslated this way 4 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s G1121Noun · Translated: letters 3, written code 3, bill 2, learning 2Full study and all 13 verses →
Acts 28:21 The leaders replied, “We have not received any letters about you from Judea, nor have any of the brothers from there reported or even mentioned anything bad about you.
2 Corinthians 3:6 And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
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.