Word study

Load

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: load, loaded, loads, loading. 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 “load” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מַשָּׂא massâload, burden, lifting, bearing, tributetranslated this way 9 times of its 64 uses · Strong’s H4853Noun  ·  Translated: burden 35, load 7, carry 5, burdens 2

    Exodus 23:5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you fallen under its load, do not leave it there; you must help him with it.

    2 Kings 8:9 So Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him a gift of forty camel loads of every good thing from Damascus. And he went in and stood before him and said, “Your son Ben-hadad king of Aram has sent me to ask, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”

    Full study and all 60 verses →
  • נָשָׂא nâsâlift, take, carrytranslated this way 4 times of its 642 uses · Strong’s H5375Verb  ·  Translated: bear 49, lift 45, lifted 41, carried 38

    Genesis 42:26 and they loaded the grain on their donkeys and departed.

    1 Samuel 17:20 So David got up early in the morning, left the flock with a keeper, loaded up, and set out as Jesse had instructed him. He reached the camp as the army was marching out to its position and shouting the battle cry.

    Full study and all 601 verses →
  • עָמַס âmasloadtranslated this way 2 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H6006Verb  ·  Translated: burdened 2

    Genesis 44:13 Then they all tore their clothes, loaded their donkeys, and returned to the city.

    Nehemiah 13:15 In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, along with wine, grapes, and figs. All kinds of goods were being brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. So I warned them against selling food on that day.

    Full study and all 8 verses →
  • עַל alheighttranslated this way 2 times of its 4,859 uses · Strong’s H5921Preposition  ·  Translated: on 777, over 297, in 218, against 216Full study and all 3,996 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • φορτίον phortíona burden, freighttranslated this way 3 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s G5413Noun  ·  Translated: load 2, burden 1, loads 1, heavy burdens 1

    Matthew 23:4 They tie up heavy, burdensome loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

    Luke 11:46 “Woe to you as well, experts in the law!” He replied. “For you weigh men down with heavy burdens, but you yourselves will not lift a finger to lighten their load.

    Full study and all 5 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.