Word study

Observe

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: observe, observed, observing, observes. 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 “observe” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עָשָׂה âsâhdo, maketranslated this way 36 times of its 2,478 uses · Strong’s H6213Verb  ·  Translated: done 292, made 265, make 143, did 112Full study and all 2,206 verses →
  • רָאָה rââhseetranslated this way 12 times of its 1,266 uses · Strong’s H7200Verb  ·  Translated: see 354, saw 285, seen 124, look 45

    Exodus 1:16 “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them on the birthstools. If the child is a son, kill him; but if it is a daughter, let her live.”

    Exodus 2:11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.

    Full study and all 1,181 verses →
  • שָׁמַר shâmarkeep, watch, preservetranslated this way 4 times of its 461 uses · Strong’s H8104Verb  ·  Translated: keep 133, careful 39, kept 33, guard 25

    Exodus 34:11 Observe what I command you this day. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

    Deuteronomy 5:12 Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you.

    Full study and all 436 verses →
  • חָזָה châzâhsee, beholdtranslated this way 2 times of its 54 uses · Strong’s H2372Verb  ·  Translated: see 18, seen 6, saw 5, sees 3

    Proverbs 24:32 I observed and took it to heart; I looked and received instruction:

    Isaiah 47:13 You are wearied by your many counselors; let them come forward now and save you— your astrologers who observe the stars, who monthly predict your fate.

    Full study and all 50 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.