Word study

Mission

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • דָּבָר dâbârspeech, wordtranslated this way 5 times of its 1,244 uses · Strong’s H1697Noun  ·  Translated: word 342, words 299, acts 51, Chronicles 42

    Joshua 2:14 “Our lives for your lives!” the men agreed. “If you do not report our mission, we will show you kindness and faithfulness when the LORD gives us the land.”

    1 Samuel 21:2 “The king has given me a mission,” David replied. “He told me no one is to know about the mission on which I am sending you. And I have directed my young men to meet me at a certain place.

    Full study and all 1,120 verses →
  • דֶּרֶךְ derekway, road, distance, journey, mannertranslated this way 4 times of its 653 uses · Strong’s H1870Noun  ·  Translated: way 204, ways 166, road 54, journey 35

    1 Samuel 15:18 and sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and devote to destruction the sinful Amalekites. Fight against them until you have wiped them out.’

    Isaiah 48:15 I, even I, have spoken; yes, I have called him. I have brought him, and he will succeed in his mission.

    Full study and all 595 verses →
  • מַעֲשֶׂה maăsehdeed, worktranslated this way 1 time of its 223 uses · Strong’s H4639Noun  ·  Translated: work 71, works 38, deeds 8, made 7

    Judges 13:12 Then Manoah asked, “When your words come to pass, what will be the boy’s rule of life and mission?”

    Full study and all 211 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • διακονία diakoníawaiting at table, service, ministrationtranslated this way 1 time of its 34 uses · Strong’s G1248Noun  ·  Translated: ministry 19, service 6, serve 3

    Acts 12:25 When Barnabas and Saul had fulfilled their mission to Jerusalem, they returned, bringing with them John, also called Mark.

    Full study and all 32 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.