Word study

Original

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רִאשׁוֹן rishônformer, first, chieftranslated this way 5 times of its 171 uses · Strong’s H7223Adjective  ·  Translated: first 85, beginning 10, former 9, former things 6

    Exodus 34:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the originals, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

    Deuteronomy 10:1 At that time the LORD said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the originals, come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood.

    Full study and all 164 verses →
  • אֲתַר ătharplacetranslated this way 2 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H870Noun  ·  Translated: original site 2, place 1, trace 1, but after you 1

    Ezra 5:15 and instructed, ‘Take these articles, put them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt on its original site.’

    Ezra 6:7 Leave this work on the house of God alone. Let the governor and elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its original site.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • אֲחֻזָּה ăchuzzâhpossessiontranslated this way 1 time of its 60 uses · Strong’s H272Noun  ·  Translated: property 26, possession 16, site 5, possess 4

    Leviticus 27:24 In the Year of Jubilee the field shall return to the one from whom it was bought — the original owner of the land.

    Full study and all 54 verses →
  • מָכוֹן mâkônfixed or established place, foundationtranslated this way 1 time of its 16 uses · Strong’s H4349Noun  ·  Translated: place 11, foundation 2, original site 1, foundations 1

    Ezra 2:68 When they arrived at the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, some of the heads of the families gave freewill offerings to rebuild the house of God on its original site.

    Full study and all 16 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πρῶτος prōtosfirst, beforetranslated this way 1 time of its 94 uses · Strong’s G4413Adjective  ·  Translated: first 76, leading 3, leaders 3, most important 2

    Matthew 20:10 So when the original workers came, they assumed they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarius.

    Full study and all 89 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.