Word study

Mislead

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: mislead, misleads, misleading. 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 “mislead” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • סוּת sûthincite, allure, instigatetranslated this way 4 times of its 18 uses · Strong’s H5496Verb  ·  Translated: urged 3, stirred 2, incited 2, mislead 2

    2 Kings 18:32 until I come and take you away to a land like your own— a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey— so that you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah, for he misleads you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’

    2 Chronicles 32:11 Is not Hezekiah misleading you to give you over to death by famine and thirst when he says, ‘The LORD our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria?’

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • תָּעָה tââherrtranslated this way 2 times of its 49 uses · Strong’s H8582Verb  ·  Translated: astray 5, go astray 4, wandered 3, stray 3

    Isaiah 3:12 Youths oppress My people, and women rule over them. O My people, your guides mislead you; they turn you from your paths.

    Isaiah 9:16 For those who guide this people mislead them, and those they mislead are swallowed up.

    Full study and all 45 verses →
  • מַדּוּחַ maddûachseductiontranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H4065Noun  ·  Translated: misleading 1

    Lamentations 2:14 The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • אָשַׁר âshargo straight, go on, advancetranslated this way 1 time of its 16 uses · Strong’s H833Verb  ·  Translated: blessed 2, walk 2, guide 2, call her blessed 2

    Isaiah 9:16 For those who guide this people mislead them, and those they mislead are swallowed up.

    Full study and all 15 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πλανάω planáōI lead astray, deceivetranslated this way 1 time of its 39 uses · Strong’s G4105Verb  ·  Translated: deceived 10, deceive 7, deceives 3, deceiving 2

    Revelation 2:20 But I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads My servants to be sexually immoral and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

    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.