Word study

Older

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “older”. 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 “older” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מַעַל maalhigher parttranslated this way 30 times of its 112 uses · Strong’s H4605Adverb  ·  Translated: older 30, above 21, more 8, upward 6

    Exodus 30:14 Everyone twenty years of age or older who crosses over must give this offering to the LORD.

    Leviticus 27:7 And if the person is sixty years of age or older, then your valuation shall be fifteen shekels for the male and ten shekels for the female.

    Full study and all 109 verses →
  • גָּדוֹל gâdôlgreattranslated this way 11 times of its 501 uses · Strong’s H1419Adjective  ·  Translated: great 262, large 33, high 20, loud 14

    Genesis 10:21 And sons were also born to Shem, the older brother of Japheth; Shem was the forefather of all the sons of Eber.

    1 Samuel 17:13 The three older sons of Jesse had followed Saul into battle: The firstborn was Eliab, the second was Abinadab, and the third was Shammah.

    Full study and all 477 verses →
  • בְּכִירָה bekîrâhfirst-borntranslated this way 4 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H1067Adjective  ·  Translated: older 3, firstborn 2, day the older 1

    Genesis 19:31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to sleep with us, as is the custom over all the earth.

    Genesis 19:34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Look, I slept with my father last night. Let us get him drunk with wine again tonight so you can go in and sleep with him and we can preserve our father’s line.”

    Full study and all 6 verses →
  • זָקֵן zâqênoldtranslated this way 2 times of its 175 uses · Strong’s H2205Adjective  ·  Translated: elders 118, old 23, elderly 5, aged 3

    Ezra 3:12 But many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads who had seen the first temple wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple. Still, many others shouted joyfully.

    Job 32:4 Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because the others were older than he.

    Full study and all 169 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πρεσβύτερος presbýteroseldertranslated this way 4 times of its 66 uses · Strong’s G4245Adjective  ·  Translated: elders 56, older 3, elder 3, old men 1

    Luke 15:25 Meanwhile the older son was in the field, and as he approached the house, he heard music and dancing.

    John 8:9 When they heard this, they began to go away one by one, beginning with the older ones, until only Jesus was left, with the woman standing there.

    Full study and all 66 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.