Word study
Person
7 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: person, persons. 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 “person” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- נֶפֶשׁ nepheshsoul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion, and passiontranslated this way 25 times of its 666 uses · Strong’s H5315Noun · Translated: soul 178, life 119, lives 30, person 22Full study and all 622 verses →
Genesis 46:26 All those belonging to Jacob who came to Egypt— his direct descendants, besides the wives of Jacob’s sons— numbered sixty-six persons.
Exodus 12:19 For seven days there must be no leaven found in your houses. If anyone eats something leavened, that person, whether a foreigner or native of the land, must be cut off from the congregation of Israel.
- אָדָם âdâmman, mankindtranslated this way 9 times of its 509 uses · Strong’s H120Noun · Translated: man 311, men 75, mankind 21, human 18Full study and all 489 verses →
Leviticus 22:5 or whoever touches a crawling creature or a person that makes him unclean, whatever the uncleanness may be —
Numbers 19:14 This is the law when a person dies in a tent: Everyone who enters the tent and everyone already in the tent will be unclean for seven days,
- אִישׁ îshmantranslated this way 6 times of its 1,399 uses · Strong’s H376Noun · Translated: man 650, men 198, one 79, each 79Full study and all 1,278 verses →
Exodus 36:1 “So Bezalel, Oholiab, and every skilled person are to carry out everything commanded by the LORD, who has given them skill and ability to know how to perform all the work of constructing the sanctuary.”
Numbers 19:20 But if a person who is unclean does not purify himself, he will be cut off from the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean.
- נֶגַע negastroke, plague, mark, plague-spottranslated this way 5 times of its 64 uses · Strong’s H5061Noun · Translated: infection 12, mildew 12, contaminated 6, plague 4Full study and all 56 verses →
Leviticus 13:4 If, however, the spot on his skin is white and does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall isolate the infected person for seven days.
Leviticus 13:12 But if the skin disease breaks out all over his skin so that it covers all the skin of the infected person from head to foot, as far as the priest can see,
- הוּא hûhe, shetranslated this way 2 times of its 1,425 uses · Strong’s H1931Pronoun · Translated: he 269, it 151, that 114, on that 87Full study and all 1,320 verses →
Leviticus 13:36 the priest is to examine him, and if the scaly outbreak has spread on the skin, the priest need not look for yellow hair; the person is unclean.
Leviticus 13:39 the priest shall examine them, and if the spots are dull white, it is a harmless rash that has broken out on the skin; the person is clean.
- טָהוֹר ṭâhôrclean, puretranslated this way 2 times of its 89 uses · Strong’s H2889Adjective · Translated: pure 37, clean 31, ceremonially clean 11, unclean 3Full study and all 84 verses →
Numbers 18:11 And this is yours as well: the offering of their gifts, along with all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I have given this to you and your sons and daughters as a permanent statute. Every ceremonially clean person in your household may eat it.
Numbers 18:13 The firstfruits of everything in their land that they bring to the LORD will belong to you. Every ceremonially clean person in your household may eat them.
- טָמֵא ṭâmêuncleantranslated this way 2 times of its 85 uses · Strong’s H2931Adjective · Translated: unclean 67, defiled 6, unclean person 2, ceremonially unclean 2Full study and all 78 verses →
Numbers 19:17 For the purification of the unclean person, take some of the ashes of the burnt sin offering, put them in a jar, and pour fresh water over them.
Numbers 19:19 The man who is ceremonially clean is to sprinkle the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day. After he purifies the unclean person on the seventh day, the one being cleansed must wash his clothes and bathe in water, and that evening he will be clean.
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.