Word study

Mention

4 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: mention, mentioned, mentioning. 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 “mention” 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)

  • זָכַר zâkarremembertranslated this way 6 times of its 227 uses · Strong’s H2142Verb  ·  Translated: remember 122, remembered 35, recorder 9, remembers 6

    Genesis 40:14 But when it goes well for you, please remember me and show me kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh, that he might bring me out of this prison.

    1 Samuel 4:18 As soon as the ark of God was mentioned, Eli fell backward from his chair by the city gate, and being old and heavy, he broke his neck and died. And Eli had judged Israel forty years.

    Full study and all 221 verses →
  • קָרָא qârâcall, proclaim, readtranslated this way 1 time of its 709 uses · Strong’s H7121Verb  ·  Translated: called 211, call 104, named 58, summoned 50Full study and all 663 verses →
  • דָבַר dâbarspeaktranslated this way 1 time of its 1,113 uses · Strong’s H1696Verb  ·  Translated: speak 209, said 157, spoken 142, spoke 110Full study and all 1,025 verses →
  • זֵכֶר zêkerremembrance, memorialtranslated this way 1 time of its 23 uses · Strong’s H2143Noun  ·  Translated: memory 11, remembered 3, renown 3, name 2

    Psalm 6:5 For there is no mention of You in death; who can praise You from Sheol?

    Full study and all 23 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • λέγω légōI say, speaktranslated this way 2 times of its 993 uses · Strong’s G3004Verb  ·  Translated: said 216, tell 164, say 105, saying 86Full study and all 936 verses →
  • λαλέω laléōI speak, saytranslated this way 1 time of its 291 uses · Strong’s G2980Verb  ·  Translated: speak 69, spoke 36, speaking 31, spoken 27

    Acts 28:21 The leaders replied, “We have not received any letters about you from Judea, nor have any of the brothers from there reported or even mentioned anything bad about you.

    Full study and all 268 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.