Word study

Morsel

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • פַּת pathfragment, bit, morseltranslated this way 4 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H6595Noun  ·  Translated: morsel 4, piece 3

    Judges 19:5 On the fourth day, they got up early in the morning and prepared to depart, but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Refresh your heart with a morsel of bread, and then you can go.”

    1 Samuel 28:22 Now please listen to your servant and let me set a morsel of bread before you so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way.”

    Full study and all 14 verses →
  • לָהַם lâhamswallow greedilytranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H3859Verb  ·  Translated: like choice morsels 2

    Proverbs 18:8 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels that go down into the inmost being.

    Proverbs 26:22 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels that go down into the inmost being.

    Full study and all 2 verses →
  • כִּכָּר kikkâra roundtranslated this way 1 time of its 68 uses · Strong’s H3603Noun  ·  Translated: talents 35, plain 10, talent 9, loaf 3

    1 Samuel 2:36 And everyone left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver or a morsel of bread, pleading, “Please appoint me to some priestly office so that I can eat a piece of bread.”’”

    Full study and all 55 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ψωμίον psōmíona bit, morseltranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G5596Noun  ·  Translated: morsel 4

    John 13:26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this morsel after I have dipped it.” Then He dipped the morsel and gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot.

    John 13:27 And when Judas had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Then Jesus said to Judas, “What you are about to do, do quickly.”

    Full study and all 3 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.