Word study

Middle

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • תָּוֶךְ tâvekmidsttranslated this way 32 times of its 379 uses · Strong’s H8432Noun  ·  Translated: among 70, middle 31, within 30, among them 27

    Genesis 2:9 Out of the ground the LORD God gave growth to every tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

    Exodus 26:28 The central crossbar in the middle of the frames shall extend from one end to the other.

    Full study and all 361 verses →
  • תִּיכוֹן tîkônmiddletranslated this way 7 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H8484Adjective  ·  Translated: middle 3, central 2, middle floors 2, middle floor 1

    Judges 7:19 Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after the changing of the guard. They blew their horns and broke the jars that were in their hands.

    1 Kings 6:6 The bottom floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits, and the third floor seven cubits. He also placed offset ledges around the outside of the temple, so that nothing would be inserted into its walls.

    Full study and all 9 verses →
  • חֵצִי chêtsîhalftranslated this way 3 times of its 122 uses · Strong’s H2677Noun  ·  Translated: half 66, half-tribe 23, other half 4, half cubits 4

    Joshua 10:13 So the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance upon its enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? “So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.”

    Jeremiah 17:11 Like a partridge hatching eggs it did not lay is the man who makes a fortune unjustly. In the middle of his days his riches will desert him, and in the end he will be the fool.”

    Full study and all 101 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • μέσος mésosmiddle, in the middletranslated this way 5 times of its 38 uses · Strong’s G3319Adjective  ·  Translated: among 10, middle 5, among them 3, in 3

    Mark 6:47 When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and Jesus was alone on land.

    Luke 5:19 but they could not find a way through the crowd. So they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.

    Full study and all 37 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.