Word study
Per
11 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: per, peres. 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 “per” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- אֵיפָה êphâhephahtranslated this way 3 times of its 38 uses · Strong’s H374Noun · Translated: ephah 27, basket 4, per ephah 3Full study and all 29 verses →
Ezekiel 46:5 The grain offering with the ram shall be one ephah, and the grain offering with the lambs shall be as much as he is able, along with a hin of oil per ephah.
Ezekiel 46:7 He is to provide a grain offering of an ephah with the bull, an ephah with the ram, and as much as he is able with the lambs, along with a hin of oil per ephah.
- אַמָּה ammâhell, cubittranslated this way 2 times of its 230 uses · Strong’s H520Noun · Translated: cubits 174, cubit 32, two cubits 5, cubits long 5Full study and all 132 verses →
1 Kings 7:24 Below the rim, ornamental buds encircled it, ten per cubit all the way around the Sea, cast in two rows as a part of the Sea.
2 Chronicles 4:3 Below the rim, figures of oxen encircled it, ten per cubit all the way around the Sea, cast in two rows as a part of the Sea.
- מְעָרָה meârâhcavetranslated this way 2 times of its 38 uses · Strong’s H4631Noun · Translated: cave 30, caves 5, per cave 2, den 1Full study and all 36 verses →
1 Kings 18:4 for when Jezebel had slaughtered the prophets of the LORD, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them, fifty men per cave, providing them with food and water.)
1 Kings 18:13 Was it not reported to my lord what I did when Jezebel slaughtered the prophets of the LORD? I hid a hundred prophets of the LORD, fifty men per cave, and I provided them with food and water.
- בַּיִת bayithhousetranslated this way 1 time of its 1,913 uses · Strong’s H1004Noun · Translated: house 1,132, temple 176, palace 117, household 93Full study and all 1,624 verses →
Exodus 12:3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man must select a lamb for his family, one per household.
- אֶחָד echâdonetranslated this way 1 time of its 855 uses · Strong’s H259Number · Translated: one 278, first 43, and one 43, a 36Full study and all 688 verses →
Exodus 16:22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much food — two omers per person — and all the leaders of the congregation came and reported this to Moses.
- גֻּלְגֹּלֶת gulgôlethskull, head, polltranslated this way 1 time of its 11 uses · Strong’s H1538Noun · Translated: one by one 3, skull 2Full study and all 11 verses →
Exodus 38:26 a beka per person, that is, half a shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, from everyone twenty years of age or older who had crossed over to be numbered, a total of 603,550 men.
- אֶדֶן edenbase, pedestaltranslated this way 1 time of its 46 uses · Strong’s H134Noun · Translated: bases 44, per base 1, foundations 1Full study and all 39 verses →
Exodus 38:27 The hundred talents of silver were used to cast the bases of the sanctuary and the bases of the veil— 100 bases from the 100 talents, one talent per base.
- מַעֲרֶכֶת maăreketharrangement, piletranslated this way 1 time of its 9 uses · Strong’s H4635Noun · Translated: rows 2, showbread 2Full study and all 8 verses →
Leviticus 24:6 and set them in two rows — six per row — on the table of pure gold before the LORD.
- יוֹם yômdaytranslated this way 1 time of its 2,013 uses · Strong’s H3117Noun · Translated: day 1,009, days 524, today 141, time 72Full study and all 1,744 verses →
- טוּר ṭûrrowtranslated this way 1 time of its 24 uses · Strong’s H2905Noun · Translated: rows 12, row 10, per row 1, row of masonry 1Full study and all 20 verses →
1 Kings 7:3 The house was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the pillars — forty-five beams, fifteen per row.
- פְּרַס perasbreak in twotranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H6537Noun · Translated: parsin 1, peres 1, divided 1Full study and all 2 verses →
Daniel 5:28 PERES means that your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”
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.