Word study

Menstrual

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • נִדָּה niddâhimpuritytranslated this way 4 times of its 26 uses · Strong’s H5079Noun  ·  Translated: menstruation 4, menstrual period 3, purification 3, of 3

    Leviticus 15:24 If a man lies with her and her menstrual flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days, and any bed on which he lies will become unclean.

    Leviticus 15:25 When a woman has a discharge of her blood for many days at a time other than her menstrual period, or if it continues beyond her period, she will be unclean all the days of her unclean discharge, just as she is during the days of her menstruation.

    Full study and all 22 verses →
  • טֻמְאָה ṭumâhuncleannesstranslated this way 1 time of its 32 uses · Strong’s H2932Noun  ·  Translated: uncleanness 15, unclean 5, impurities 3, impurity 2

    Leviticus 15:26 Any bed on which she lies or any furniture on which she sits during the days of her discharge will be unclean, like her bed during her menstrual period.

    Full study and all 29 verses →
  • דָּוֶה dâvehfaint, unwelltranslated this way 1 time of its 5 uses · Strong’s H1739Adjective  ·  Translated: faint 2, woman 1, menstruating 1, menstrual cloths 1

    Isaiah 30:22 So you will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, saying to them, “Be gone!”

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • טָמֵא ṭâmêuncleantranslated this way 1 time of its 85 uses · Strong’s H2931Adjective  ·  Translated: unclean 67, defiled 6, unclean person 2, ceremonially unclean 2

    Ezekiel 22:10 In you they have uncovered the nakedness of their fathers; in you they violate women during their menstrual impurity.

    Full study and all 78 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.