Word study

Lifetime

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חַי chayalive, livingtranslated this way 5 times of its 485 uses · Strong’s H2416Noun  ·  Translated: life 112, lives 62, living 59, live 53

    2 Samuel 18:18 During his lifetime, Absalom had set up for himself a pillar in the King’s Valley, for he had said, “I have no son to preserve the memory of my name.” So he gave the pillar his name, and to this day it is called Absalom’s Monument.

    1 Kings 12:6 Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How do you advise me to respond to these people?” he asked.

    Full study and all 441 verses →
  • יוֹם yômdaytranslated this way 5 times of its 2,013 uses · Strong’s H3117Noun  ·  Translated: day 1,009, days 524, today 141, time 72Full study and all 1,744 verses →
  • תֶּרַח TerachTerachtranslated this way 1 time of its 12 uses · Strong’s H8646Noun  ·  Translated: Terah 10, Terah's lifetime 1, including terah 1

    Genesis 11:28 During his father Terah’s lifetime, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

    Full study and all 11 verses →
  • פָּנִים pânîmface, beforetranslated this way 1 time of its 1,836 uses · Strong’s H6440Noun  ·  Translated: before 448, face 222, presence 147, before you 123Full study and all 1,671 verses →
  • חֶלֶד cheledduration, worldtranslated this way 1 time of its 5 uses · Strong’s H2465Noun  ·  Translated: world 2, life 1, lifetime 1, briefness 1

    Psalm 39:5 You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah

    Full study and all 5 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ζωή zōḗlifetranslated this way 1 time of its 134 uses · Strong’s G2222Noun  ·  Translated: life 129, living 2, lifetime 1, alive 1

    Luke 16:25 But Abraham answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, while you are in agony.

    Full study and all 127 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.