Word study
Pasture
7 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: pasture, pastures, pasturing, pastured. 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 “pasture” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- רָעָה rââhpasture, tend, grazetranslated this way 15 times of its 170 uses · Strong’s H7462Verb · Translated: shepherd 42, shepherds 39, feed 18, graze 8Full study and all 146 verses →
Genesis 29:7 “Look,” said Jacob, “it is still broad daylight; it is not yet time to gather the livestock. Water the sheep and take them back to pasture.”
Job 24:2 Men move boundary stones; they pasture stolen flocks.
- נָוֶה nâvehabode of shepherd, or flockstranslated this way 15 times of its 37 uses · Strong’s H5116Noun · Translated: pasture 11, dwelling 3, dwelling place 2, home 2Full study and all 36 verses →
2 Samuel 7:8 Now then, you are to tell My servant David that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I took you from the pasture, from following the flock, to be the ruler over My people Israel.
1 Chronicles 17:7 Now then, you are to tell My servant David that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I took you from the pasture, from following the flock, to be the ruler over My people Israel.
- מִרְעֶה mirehpasturage, pasturetranslated this way 12 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s H4829Noun · Translated: pasture 12, feeding ground 1Full study and all 11 verses →
Genesis 47:4 Then they said to Pharaoh, “We have come to live in the land for a time, because there is no pasture for the flocks of your servants, since the famine in the land of Canaan has been severe. So now, please allow your servants to settle in the land of Goshen.”
1 Chronicles 4:39 and they journeyed to the entrance of Gedor, to the east side of the valley, in search of pasture for their flocks.
- מִרְעִית mirîthpasturing, shepherding, pasturagetranslated this way 9 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H4830Noun · Translated: pasture 8, find pasture 1, flock 1Full study and all 10 verses →
Psalm 74:1 A Maskil of Asaph. Why have You rejected us forever, O God? Why does Your anger smolder against the sheep of Your pasture?
Isaiah 49:9 to say to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’ They will feed along the pathways, and find pasture on every barren hill.
- נָאָה nââhhome, pasturetranslated this way 9 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H4999Noun · Translated: pastures 8, pasture 1, meadows 1Full study and all 10 verses →
Psalm 23:2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.
Jeremiah 9:10 I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.
- דֹּבֶר dôberpasturetranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H1699Noun · Translated: pastures 1, word 1, pasture 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Isaiah 5:17 Lambs will graze as in their own pastures, and strangers will feed in the ruins of the wealthy.
Micah 2:12 I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will collect the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in the midst of its pasture — a noisy throng.
- כַּר karbasket-saddletranslated this way 2 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H3733Noun · Translated: lambs 7, battering rams 3, pastures 2Full study and all 15 verses →
Psalm 65:13 The pastures are clothed with flocks, and the valleys are decked with grain. They shout in triumph; indeed, they sing.
Isaiah 30:23 Then He will send rain for the seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food that comes from your land will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.
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.