Word study
Month
5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: month, months. 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 “month” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- חֹדֶשׁ chôdesh(newness), new moon, monthtranslated this way 205 times of its 254 uses · Strong’s H2320Noun · Translated: month 165, months 31, day 18, New Moon 11Full study and all 219 verses →
Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
Exodus 12:2 “This month is the beginning of months for you; it shall be the first month of your year.
- יֶרַח yerachmonthtranslated this way 11 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s H3391Noun · Translated: months 5, month 4, full month 2, seasons 1Full study and all 12 verses →
Exodus 2:2 and she conceived and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months.
Deuteronomy 21:13 and put aside the clothing of her captivity. After she has lived in your house a full month and mourned her father and mother, you may have relations with her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
- רִאשׁוֹן rishônformer, first, chieftranslated this way 5 times of its 171 uses · Strong’s H7223Adjective · Translated: first 85, beginning 10, former 9, former things 6Full study and all 164 verses →
Genesis 8:13 In Noah’s six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth. So Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
Ezekiel 29:17 In the twenty-seventh year, on the first day of the first month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
- עֲשִׂירִי ăsîrîtenthtranslated this way 2 times of its 28 uses · Strong’s H6224Number · Translated: tenth 23, tenth month 2, day of the tenth 2, along with a tenth 1Full study and all 25 verses →
Genesis 8:5 And the waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
Ezekiel 33:21 In the twelfth year of our exile, on the fifth day of the tenth month, a fugitive from Jerusalem came to me and reported, “The city has been taken!”
- יְרַח yerachmonthtranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H3393Noun · Translated: month 1, months 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Ezra 6:15 And this temple was completed on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.
Daniel 4:29 Twelve months later, as he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon,
Greek words (New Testament)
- μήν mḗna monthtranslated this way 15 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s G3376Noun · Translated: months 11, month 4Full study and all 15 verses →
Luke 1:24 After these days, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. She declared,
Acts 7:20 At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in the sight of God. For three months he was nurtured in his father’s house.
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.
What the Bible says about month: passages by topic →
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.