Word study

Overthrew

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • הָפַךְ hâphakturn, overturntranslated this way 3 times of its 93 uses · Strong’s H2015Verb  ·  Translated: turned 27, turn 7, changed 4, overthrew 3

    Deuteronomy 29:23 All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger.

    Jeremiah 20:16 May that man be like the cities that the LORD overthrew without compassion. May he hear an outcry in the morning and a battle cry at noon,

    Full study and all 91 verses →
  • מַהְפֵּכָה mahpêkâhoverthrowtranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H4114Noun  ·  Translated: overthrown 2, overthrew 2, like the destruction 1, demolished 1

    Jeremiah 50:40 As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah along with their neighbors,” declares the LORD, “no one will dwell there; no man will abide there.

    Amos 4:11 “Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

    Full study and all 6 verses →
  • הָרַס hârasthrow down, break or tear downtranslated this way 1 time of its 42 uses · Strong’s H2040Verb  ·  Translated: demolish 7, tear 6, torn 6, destroyed 5

    Exodus 15:7 You overthrew Your adversaries by Your great majesty. You unleashed Your burning wrath; it consumed them like stubble.

    Full study and all 42 verses →
  • שָׁלַךְ shâlakthrow, fling, casttranslated this way 1 time of its 126 uses · Strong’s H7993Verb  ·  Translated: cast 27, threw 20, throw 16, thrown 10

    Daniel 8:11 It magnified itself, even to the Prince of the host; it removed His daily sacrifice and overthrew the place of His sanctuary.

    Full study and all 121 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.