Word study

Locked

2 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “locked”. 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 “locked” 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)

  • נָעַל nâalbar, bolt, locktranslated this way 2 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H5274Verb  ·  Translated: locked 2

    Judges 3:24 After Ehud was gone, Eglon’s servants came in and found the doors of the upper room locked. “He must be relieving himself in the cool room,” they said.

    Song of Solomon 4:12 My sister, my bride, you are a garden locked up, a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • סָגַר sâgarshut, closetranslated this way 1 time of its 90 uses · Strong’s H5462Verb  ·  Translated: shut 23, closed 9, isolate 8, delivered 8

    Judges 9:51 But there was a strong tower inside the city, and all the men, women, and leaders of the city fled there. They locked themselves in and went up to the roof of the tower.

    Full study and all 87 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • κλείω kleíōI shut, shut uptranslated this way 3 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s G2808Verb  ·  Translated: shut 10, locked 3, withholds 1, shuts 1

    John 20:19 It was the first day of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you!” He said to them.

    Acts 5:23 “We found the jail securely locked, with the guards posted at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside.”

    Full study and all 15 verses →
  • κατακλείω katakleíōI shut up, confinetranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s G2623Verb  ·  Translated: locked 1, put 1

    Luke 3:20 Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.

    Full study and all 2 verses →
  • συγκλείω synkleíōI enclose, shut intranslated this way 1 time of its 4 uses · Strong’s G4788Verb  ·  Translated: caught 1, consigned 1, confined 1, locked 1

    Galatians 3:23 Before this faith came, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.

    Full study and all 4 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.