Word study
Origin
4 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: origin, origins. 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 “origin” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- מְכוּרָה mekûrâhorigintranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H4351Noun · Translated: origin 3Full study and all 3 verses →
Ezekiel 16:3 and tell her that this is what the Lord GOD says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
Ezekiel 21:30 Return the sword to its sheath! In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.
- אַי aywhere?translated this way 1 time of its 39 uses · Strong’s H335Interrogative · Translated: where 18, and where 5, which 4, what 2Full study and all 37 verses →
1 Samuel 25:11 Why should I take my bread and water and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give them to these men whose origin I do not know?”
- קַדְמָה qadmâhantiquity, former statetranslated this way 1 time of its 5 uses · Strong’s H6927Noun · Translated: former state 2, before 1, origin 1, once 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Isaiah 23:7 Is this your jubilant city, whose origin is from antiquity, whose feet have taken her to settle far away?
- מוֹצָאָה môtsââhfamily descent, sewertranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H4163Noun · Translated: origins 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Micah 5:2 But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come forth for Me One to be ruler over Israel— One whose origins are of old, from the days of eternity.
Greek words (New Testament)
- γένος génosoffspring, family, race, kindtranslated this way 1 time of its 16 uses · Strong’s G1085Noun · Translated: people 3, offspring 3, family 2, native 2Full study and all 16 verses →
Mark 7:26 Now she was a Greek woman of Syrophoenician origin, and she kept asking Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
- ἄνθρωπος ánthrōposa man, one of the human racetranslated this way 1 time of its 479 uses · Strong’s G444Noun · Translated: man 290, men 127, people 14, man's 8Full study and all 444 verses →
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.
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.