Word study

Natural

2 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מָוֶת mâvethdeathtranslated this way 1 time of its 153 uses · Strong’s H4194Noun  ·  Translated: death 108, die 7, died 7, dies 6

    Numbers 16:29 If these men die a natural death, or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the LORD has not sent me.

    Full study and all 148 verses →
  • מוּת mûthdietranslated this way 1 time of its 771 uses · Strong’s H4191Verb  ·  Translated: die 198, died 152, dead 89, put to death 47

    Numbers 19:16 Anyone in the open field who touches someone who has been killed by the sword or has died of natural causes, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.

    Full study and all 694 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ψυχικός psychikósanimal, natural, sensuoustranslated this way 4 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s G5591Adjective  ·  Translated: natural 4, unspiritual 1, worldly 1

    1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

    1 Corinthians 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • φυσικός physikósnatural, according to naturetranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G5446Adjective  ·  Translated: natural 2, creatures of instinct 1

    Romans 1:26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

    Romans 1:27 Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • φύσις phýsisnature, inherent naturetranslated this way 2 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s G5449Noun  ·  Translated: nature 6, natural 2, unnatural 1, physically 1

    Romans 11:21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will certainly not spare you either.

    Romans 11:24 For if you were cut from a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one that is cultivated, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

    Full study and all 11 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.