Word study

Owner

2 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: owner, owners. 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 “owner” 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)

  • בַּעַל baalowner, lordtranslated this way 15 times of its 76 uses · Strong’s H1167Noun  ·  Translated: owner 15, leaders 15, husband 6, bound 2

    Exodus 21:28 If an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox must surely be stoned, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the ox shall not be held responsible.

    Judges 19:23 The owner of the house went out and said to them, “No, my brothers, do not do this wicked thing! After all, this man is a guest in my house. Do not commit this outrage.

    Full study and all 72 verses →
  • אֲשֶׁר ăsherparticle of relationtranslated this way 2 times of its 3,225 uses · Strong’s H834Pronoun  ·  Translated: that 886, who 451, as 247, which 160

    Leviticus 6:5 or anything else about which he has sworn falsely. He must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value, and pay it to the owner on the day he acknowledges his guilt.

    Leviticus 14:35 the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, ‘Something like mildew has appeared in my house.’

    Full study and all 2,844 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • κύριος kýrioslord, Lord, master, sirtranslated this way 8 times of its 713 uses · Strong’s G2962Noun  ·  Translated: Lord 549, of 55, master 42, Lord's 18

    Matthew 20:8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last ones hired and moving on to the first.’

    Mark 12:9 What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.

    Full study and all 658 verses →
  • οἰκοδεσπότης oikodespótēsa head of a householdtranslated this way 4 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s G3617Noun  ·  Translated: homeowner 3, landowner 2, owner 2

    Mark 14:14 and whichever house he enters, say to the owner, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is My guest room, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?’

    Luke 14:21 The servant returned and reported all this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’

    Full study and all 11 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.