Word study

Music

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “music”. 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 “music” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • זָמַר zâmarmake musictranslated this way 7 times of its 45 uses · Strong’s H2167Verb  ·  Translated: sing praises 19, sing praise 10, make music 7, Sing 4

    Psalm 27:6 Then my head will be held high above my enemies around me. At His tabernacle I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD.

    Psalm 33:2 Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to Him with ten strings.

    Full study and all 41 verses →
  • זְמָר zemârmusictranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H2170Noun  ·  Translated: music 4

    Daniel 3:5 As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

    Daniel 3:7 Therefore, as soon as all the people heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, and all kinds of music, the people of every nation and language would fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • שִׁיר shîrsongtranslated this way 2 times of its 89 uses · Strong’s H7892Noun  ·  Translated: song 62, songs 12, musical 6, singing 2

    1 Chronicles 6:31 These are the men David put in charge of the music in the house of the LORD after the ark rested there.

    1 Chronicles 25:6 All these were under the direction of their fathers for the music of the house of the LORD with cymbals, harps, and lyres, for the service of the house of God. Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman were under the direction of the king.

    Full study and all 87 verses →
  • מַשָּׂא massâload, burden, lifting, bearing, tributetranslated this way 2 times of its 64 uses · Strong’s H4853Noun  ·  Translated: burden 35, load 7, carry 5, burdens 2

    1 Chronicles 15:22 Chenaniah the head Levite was the director of the music because he was highly skilled.

    1 Chronicles 15:27 Now David was dressed in a robe of fine linen, as were all the Levites who were carrying the ark, as well as the singers and Chenaniah, the director of music for the singers. David also wore a linen ephod.

    Full study and all 60 verses →
  • שָׁמַע shâmaheartranslated this way 2 times of its 1,132 uses · Strong’s H8085Verb  ·  Translated: heard 311, hear 253, listen 218, obey 60

    1 Chronicles 15:28 So all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the LORD with shouting, with the sounding of rams’ horns and trumpets, and with cymbals and the music of harps and lyres.

    1 Chronicles 16:42 Heman and Jeduthun had with them trumpets and cymbals for the music and instruments for the songs of God. And the sons of Jeduthun were stationed at the gate.

    Full study and all 1,063 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 music: 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.