Word study

Pity

3 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חוּס chûspity, look upon with compassiontranslated this way 14 times of its 22 uses · Strong’s H2347Verb  ·  Translated: pity 7, spare 2

    Deuteronomy 7:16 You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God will deliver to you. Do not look on them with pity. Do not worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

    Psalm 72:13 He will take pity on the poor and needy and save the lives of the oppressed.

    Full study and all 22 verses →
  • חָמַל châmalsparetranslated this way 6 times of its 38 uses · Strong’s H2550Verb  ·  Translated: spare 10, compassion 7, pity 5, mercy 5

    2 Samuel 12:6 Because he has done this thing and has shown no pity, he must pay for the lamb four times over.”

    Jeremiah 15:5 Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Who will mourn for you? Who will turn aside to ask about your welfare?

    Full study and all 37 verses →
  • חָנַן chânanshew favour, be gracioustranslated this way 4 times of its 76 uses · Strong’s H2603Verb  ·  Translated: gracious 17, mercy 14, merciful 7, favor 4

    Deuteronomy 28:50 a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young.

    Job 19:21 Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.

    Full study and all 72 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.

What the Bible says about pity: passages by topic →

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.