Word study

Occupy

8 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • יָשַׁב yâshabsit, remain, dwelltranslated this way 8 times of its 1,049 uses · Strong’s H3427Verb  ·  Translated: lived 103, dwell 89, live 84, sit 70

    Numbers 21:25 Israel captured all the cities of the Amorites and occupied them, including Heshbon and all its villages.

    Judges 18:1 In those days there was no king in Israel, and the tribe of the Danites was looking for territory to occupy. For up to that time they had not come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.

    Full study and all 960 verses →
  • עָנָה ânâhbe occupied, busied withtranslated this way 3 times of its 80 uses · Strong’s H6031Verb  ·  Translated: afflicted 15, humble 12, oppress 5, afflict 4

    Ecclesiastes 1:13 And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a miserable task God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them!

    Ecclesiastes 3:10 I have seen the burden that God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them.

    Full study and all 78 verses →
  • יָרַשׁ yârashtake possession of, inherit, dispossesstranslated this way 2 times of its 230 uses · Strong’s H3423Verb  ·  Translated: possess 72, drive 27, take possession 21, driven 12

    Joshua 17:12 But the descendants of Manasseh were unable to occupy these cities, because the Canaanites were determined to stay in this land.

    Obadiah 1:19 Those from the Negev will possess the mountains of Esau; those from the foothills will possess the land of the Philistines. They will occupy the fields of Ephraim and Samaria, and Benjamin will possess Gilead.

    Full study and all 204 verses →
  • הָיָה hâyâhfall out, come to pass, become, betranslated this way 2 times of its 2,848 uses · Strong’s H1961Verb  ·  Translated: will be 206, become 178, came 169, was 151Full study and all 2,573 verses →
  • עָשָׂה âsâhdo, maketranslated this way 1 time of its 2,478 uses · Strong’s H6213Verb  ·  Translated: done 292, made 265, make 143, did 112

    Exodus 5:9 Make the work harder on the men so they will be occupied and pay no attention to these lies.”

    Full study and all 2,206 verses →
  • שִׂיג sîga withdrawaltranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H7873Noun  ·  Translated: occupied 1

    1 Kings 18:27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them, saying, “Shout louder, for he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or occupied, or on a journey. Perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened!”

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • בֵּן bênsontranslated this way 1 time of its 4,587 uses · Strong’s H1121Noun  ·  Translated: son 1,843, sons 892, Israelites 422, descendants 358Full study and all 3,473 verses →
  • בּוֹא bôcome in, come, go in, gotranslated this way 1 time of its 2,442 uses · Strong’s H935Verb  ·  Translated: come 358, came 298, bring 209, brought 201Full study and all 2,217 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πλήρης plḗrēsfulltranslated this way 1 time of its 11 uses · Strong’s G4134Adjective  ·  Translated: full 8, ripens 1, covered 1, occupied 1

    Acts 9:36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which is translated as Dorcas), who was always occupied with works of kindness and charity.

    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.