Word study

Net

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רֶשֶׁת reshethnettranslated this way 16 times of its 21 uses · Strong’s H7568Noun  ·  Translated: net 16, mesh 5

    Job 18:8 For his own feet lead him into a net, and he wanders into its mesh.

    Psalm 9:15 The nations have fallen into a pit of their making; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.

    Full study and all 20 verses →
  • חֵרֶם chêremdevoted thingtranslated this way 7 times of its 35 uses · Strong’s H2764Noun  ·  Translated: devoted 5, set apart for destruction 4, things devoted to destruction 4, net 4

    Ecclesiastes 7:26 And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is ensnared.

    Ezekiel 26:5 She will become a place to spread nets in the sea, for I have spoken, declares the Lord GOD. She will become plunder for the nations,

    Full study and all 30 verses →
  • מִכְמֶרֶת mikmerethnet, fishing-nettranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H4365Noun  ·  Translated: fishing net 2, nets 1

    Isaiah 19:8 Then the fishermen will mourn, all who cast a hook into the Nile will lament, and those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.

    Habakkuk 1:15 The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • מָצוֹד mâtsôdsiege-workstranslated this way 2 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H4685Noun  ·  Translated: drawn his net 1, plunder 1, snare 1, net 1

    Job 19:6 then understand that it is God who has wronged me and drawn His net around me.

    Ecclesiastes 9:12 For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • מַכְמָר makmârnet, snaretranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H4364Noun  ·  Translated: nets 1, net 1

    Psalm 141:10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by in safety.

    Isaiah 51:20 Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street, like an antelope in a net. They are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

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 net: 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.