Word study
Mocker
3 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: mocker, mockers. 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 “mocker” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- לוּץ lûtsscorntranslated this way 15 times of its 28 uses · Strong’s H3887Verb · Translated: mocker 11, mockers 4, mock 3, mocks 2Full study and all 27 verses →
Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.
Proverbs 3:34 He mocks the mockers, but gives grace to the humble.
- הָתֹל hâthôlderisiontranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H2049Noun · Translated: mockers 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Job 17:2 Surely mockers surround me, and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion.
- אֱנוֹשׁ ĕnôshman, mankindtranslated this way 1 time of its 470 uses · Strong’s H582Noun · Translated: men 368, man 25, people 5, husbands 4Full study and all 447 verses →
Proverbs 29:8 Mockers inflame a city, but the wise turn away anger.
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.