Word study

Mountain

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • הַר harmountain, hill, hill-countrytranslated this way 270 times of its 530 uses · Strong’s H2022Noun  ·  Translated: mountains 140, mountain 130, Mount 124, hill country 82

    Genesis 7:19 Finally, the waters completely prevailed upon the earth, so that all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered.

    Exodus 3:1 Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

    Full study and all 480 verses →
  • הָרָר hârârmountaintranslated this way 10 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s H2042Noun  ·  Translated: mountains 8, hills 2, mountain 2

    Numbers 23:7 And Balaam lifted up an oracle, saying: “Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the mountains of the east. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘put a curse on Jacob for me; come and denounce Israel!’

    Deuteronomy 33:15 with the best of the ancient mountains and the bounty of the everlasting hills,

    Full study and all 12 verses →
  • סֶלַע selacrag, clifftranslated this way 2 times of its 54 uses · Strong’s H5553Noun  ·  Translated: rock 30, rocks 11, cliffs 5, cliff 3

    Job 39:1 “Do you know when mountain goats give birth? Have you watched the doe bear her fawn?

    Isaiah 33:16 he will dwell on the heights; the mountain fortress will be his refuge; his food will be provided and his water assured.

    Full study and all 51 verses →
  • טוּר ṭûrmountaintranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2906Noun  ·  Translated: mountain 2

    Daniel 2:35 Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were shattered and became like chaff on the threshing floor in summer. The wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that had struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

    Daniel 2:45 And just as you saw a stone being cut out of the mountain without human hands, and it shattered the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold, so the great God has told the king what will happen in the future. The dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy.”

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ὄρος órosa mountaintranslated this way 40 times of its 63 uses · Strong’s G3735Noun  ·  Translated: mountain 30, Mount 18, mountains 10, hill 2

    Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

    Mark 3:13 Then Jesus went up on the mountain and called for those He wanted, and they came to Him.

    Full study and all 63 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.

What the Bible says about mountain: 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.