Word study
Oil
4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: oil, oils. 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 “oil” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- שֶׁמֶן shemenfat, oiltranslated this way 174 times of its 191 uses · Strong’s H8081Noun · Translated: oil 144, olive oil 22, olive 4, perfume 3Full study and all 175 verses →
Genesis 28:18 Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone that he had placed under his head, and he set it up as a pillar. He poured oil on top of it,
Exodus 25:6 olive oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense;
- יִצְהָר yitshârfresh oiltranslated this way 21 times of its 22 uses · Strong’s H3323Noun · Translated: oil 19, olive oil 1, oil fails 1, anointed 1Full study and all 22 verses →
Numbers 18:12 I give you all the freshest olive oil and all the finest new wine and grain that the Israelites give to the LORD as their firstfruits.
Deuteronomy 7:13 He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your land— your grain, new wine, and oil, the young of your herds and the lambs of your flocks— in the land that He swore to your fathers to give you.
- 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 →
- מְשַׁח meshachoiltranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H4887Noun · Translated: oil 1, olive oil 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Ezra 6:9 Whatever is needed— young bulls, rams, and lambs for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, as well as wheat, salt, wine, and oil, as requested by the priests in Jerusalem— must be given to them daily without fail.
Ezra 7:22 up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cors of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of olive oil, and salt without limit.
Greek words (New Testament)
- ἔλαιον élaionolive oiltranslated this way 10 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s G1637Noun · Translated: oil 8, olive oil 2, with 1Full study and all 11 verses →
Matthew 25:3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take along any extra oil.
Mark 6:13 They also drove out many demons and healed many of the sick, anointing them with oil.
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.
What the Bible says about oil: 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.