Word study

Onto

7 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • אֵל êlmotion totranslated this way 3 times of its 4,199 uses · Strong’s H413Preposition  ·  Translated: to 1,941, to me 285, to you 149, to him 137Full study and all 3,455 verses →
  • עָלָה âlâhgo up, ascend, climbtranslated this way 2 times of its 873 uses · Strong’s H5927Verb  ·  Translated: go 118, went 107, brought 56, come 42

    Genesis 49:4 Uncontrolled as the waters, you will no longer excel, because you went up to your father’s bed, onto my couch, and defiled it.

    Exodus 8:5 And the LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers and canals and ponds, and cause the frogs to come up onto the land of Egypt.’”

    Full study and all 807 verses →
  • עַל alheighttranslated this way 2 times of its 4,859 uses · Strong’s H5921Preposition  ·  Translated: on 777, over 297, in 218, against 216

    Exodus 8:3 The Nile will teem with frogs, and they will come into your palace and up to your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and your people, and into your ovens and kneading bowls.

    Exodus 8:7 But the magicians did the same thing by their magic arts, and they also brought frogs up onto the land of Egypt.

    Full study and all 3,996 verses →
  • תָּוֶךְ tâvekmidsttranslated this way 1 time of its 379 uses · Strong’s H8432Noun  ·  Translated: among 70, middle 31, within 30, among them 27

    Numbers 19:6 The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool and throw them onto the burning heifer.

    Full study and all 361 verses →
  • שָׁם shâmthere, thithertranslated this way 1 time of its 551 uses · Strong’s H8033Adverb  ·  Translated: there 309, from there 42, and there 38, where 29

    Judges 8:25 “We will give them gladly,” they replied. So they spread out a garment, and each man threw an earring from his plunder onto it.

    Full study and all 502 verses →
  • תָּעָה tââherrtranslated this way 1 time of its 49 uses · Strong’s H8582Verb  ·  Translated: astray 5, go astray 4, wandered 3, stray 3

    Isaiah 35:8 And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it — only those who walk in the Way — and fools will not stray onto it.

    Full study and all 45 verses →
  • רַב rabmuch, many, greattranslated this way 1 time of its 445 uses · Strong’s H7227Adjective  ·  Translated: many 171, great 65, captain 24, long 14Full study and all 426 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • εἰς eisinto, in, among, till, fortranslated this way 2 times of its 1,383 uses · Strong’s G1519Preposition  ·  Translated: to 481, into 306, in 179, for 133

    Matthew 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go onto the road of the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.

    Full study and all 1,235 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.