Word study

Memorial

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • זִכְרוֹן zikrônmemorial, remembrancetranslated this way 11 times of its 24 uses · Strong’s H2146Noun  ·  Translated: memorial 11, reminder 5, remembrance 3

    Exodus 12:14 And this day will be a memorial for you, and you are to celebrate it as a feast to the LORD, as a permanent statute for the generations to come.

    Numbers 5:15 then he is to bring his wife to the priest. He must also bring for her an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour. He is not to pour oil over it or put frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, an offering of memorial as a reminder of iniquity.

    Full study and all 22 verses →
  • אַזְכָּרָה azkârâhmemorial-offeringtranslated this way 7 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H234Noun  ·  Translated: memorial portion 7

    Leviticus 2:2 and bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests. The priest shall take a handful of the flour and oil, together with all the frankincense, and burn this as a memorial portion on the altar, a food offering, a pleasing aroma to the LORD.

    Numbers 5:26 Then the priest is to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial portion and burn it on the altar; after that he is to have the woman drink the water.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • יָד yâdhandtranslated this way 1 time of its 1,403 uses · Strong’s H3027Noun  ·  Translated: hand 664, hands 349, through 64, power 22Full study and all 1,290 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • μνημόσυνον mnēmósynonreminder, memorial, remembrance offeringtranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s G3422Noun  ·  Translated: memory 2, memorial 1

    Acts 10:4 Cornelius stared at him in fear and asked, “What is it, Lord?” The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have ascended as a memorial offering before God.

    Full study and all 3 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.

What the Bible says about memorial: 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.