Word study
Magician
5 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: magicians, magician. 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 “magician” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- חַרְטֹם charṭômengraver, writertranslated this way 8 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s H2748Noun · Translated: magicians 8, enchanters 2, on 1Full study and all 10 verses →
Genesis 41:8 In the morning his spirit was troubled, so he summoned all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but no one could interpret them for him.
Exodus 7:11 But Pharaoh called the wise men and sorcerers and magicians of Egypt, and they also did the same things by their magic arts.
- חַרְטֹם charṭômmagiciantranslated this way 4 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H2749Noun · Translated: magicians 3, magician 1, medium 1Full study and all 5 verses →
Daniel 2:10 The astrologers answered the king, “No one on earth can do what the king requests! No king, however great and powerful, has ever asked anything like this of any magician, enchanter, or astrologer.
Daniel 4:7 When the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and diviners came in, I told them the dream, but they could not interpret it for me.
- אַשָּׁף ashshâphconjurer, necromancertranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H825Noun · Translated: magicians 2Full study and all 2 verses →
Daniel 1:20 In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his entire kingdom.
Daniel 2:2 So the king gave orders to summon the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers to explain his dreams. When they came and stood before the king,
- חֶרֶשׁ chereshsilently, secretlytranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2791Noun · Translated: secretly 1, magician 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Isaiah 3:3 the commander of fifty and the dignitary, the counselor, the cunning magician, and the clever enchanter.
- גְּזַר gezarcut, (divide,) determinetranslated this way 1 time of its 6 uses · Strong’s H1505Verb · Translated: diviners 3, cut 2, magician 1Full study and all 6 verses →
Daniel 2:27 Daniel answered the king, “No wise man, enchanter, medium, or magician can explain to the king the mystery of which he inquires.
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.
What the Bible says about magician: passages by topic →
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.