Word study

Misery

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עָמָל âmâltrouble, labour, toiltranslated this way 4 times of its 55 uses · Strong’s H5999Noun  ·  Translated: labor 15, trouble 14, toil 4, misery 4

    Judges 10:16 So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD, and He could no longer bear the misery of Israel.

    Job 7:3 So I am allotted months of futility, and nights of misery are appointed to me.

    Full study and all 54 verses →
  • רַע rabad, eviltranslated this way 2 times of its 651 uses · Strong’s H7451Adjective  ·  Translated: evil 263, disaster 72, harm 38, wicked 31

    Genesis 44:34 For how can I go back to my father without the boy? I could not bear to see the misery that would overwhelm him.”

    Full study and all 615 verses →
  • עָכַר âkarstir up, disturb, troubletranslated this way 1 time of its 14 uses · Strong’s H5916Verb  ·  Translated: brought trouble 3, brings trouble 3

    Judges 11:35 As soon as Jephthah saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “No! Not my daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You have brought great misery upon me, for I have given my word to the LORD and cannot take it back.”

    Full study and all 13 verses →
  • עָמֵל âmêllabourer, sufferertranslated this way 1 time of its 7 uses · Strong’s H6001Noun  ·  Translated: toil 2, workman's 1, miserable 1, misery 1

    Job 20:22 In the midst of his plenty, he will be distressed; the full force of misery will come upon him.

    Full study and all 7 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

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.