Word study

Pagan

1 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • טָמֵא ṭâmêuncleantranslated this way 1 time of its 85 uses · Strong’s H2931Adjective  ·  Translated: unclean 67, defiled 6, unclean person 2, ceremonially unclean 2

    Amos 7:17 Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be divided by a measuring line, and you yourself will die on pagan soil. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their homeland.’”

    Full study and all 78 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἔθνος éthnosa race, people, the Gentilestranslated this way 3 times of its 162 uses · Strong’s G1484Noun  ·  Translated: Gentiles 79, nations 39, nation 27, people 5

    1 Corinthians 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is intolerable even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.

    1 Corinthians 10:20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons.

    Full study and all 150 verses →
  • ἐθνικός ethnikóspagan, heathen, gentile; a Gentile, non-Jewtranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G1482Adjective  ·  Translated: Gentiles 2, pagans 1, pagan 1

    Matthew 6:7 And when you pray, do not babble on like pagans, for they think that by their many words they will be heard.

    Matthew 18:17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, regard him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

    Full study and all 4 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.