Word study
Nearby
3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “nearby”. 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 “nearby” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- קָרוֹב qârôbneartranslated this way 3 times of its 74 uses · Strong’s H7138Adjective · Translated: near 38, nearest 4, nearby 3, next 2Full study and all 72 verses →
Genesis 19:20 Look, there is a town nearby where I can flee, and it is a small place. Please let me flee there — is it not a small place? Then my life will be saved.”
Proverbs 27:10 Do not forsake your friend or your father’s friend, and do not go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity; better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.
- עַל alheighttranslated this way 2 times of its 4,859 uses · Strong’s H5921Preposition · Translated: on 777, over 297, in 218, against 216Full study and all 3,996 verses →
Genesis 18:2 And Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
- נֶגֶד negedwhat is conspicuous or in fronttranslated this way 2 times of its 142 uses · Strong’s H5048Preposition · Translated: before 24, before me 11, opposite 11, presence 9Full study and all 135 verses →
Genesis 21:16 Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.
Greek words (New Testament)
- παρίστημι parístēmiI bring, present, come up to and stand bytranslated this way 6 times of its 41 uses · Strong’s G3936Verb · Translated: present 9, standing nearby 6, stand 3, presented 3Full study and all 39 verses →
Mark 14:69 There the servant girl saw him and again said to those standing nearby, “This man is one of them.”
John 18:22 When Jesus had said this, one of the officers standing nearby slapped Him in the face and said, “Is this how You answer the high priest?”
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.
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.