Word study

Plow

2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: plow, plowed, plowing, plows. 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 “plow” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חָרַשׁ chârashcut in, engrave, plough, devisetranslated this way 14 times of its 69 uses · Strong’s H2790Verb  ·  Translated: silent 11, plow 6, plowed 5, quiet 5

    Deuteronomy 22:10 Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.

    Judges 14:18 Before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the city said to Samson: “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?” So he said to them: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!”

    Full study and all 65 verses →
  • חָרִישׁ chârîshploughing, ploughing-timetranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H2758Noun  ·  Translated: plowing 1, even in the seasons of plowing 1, ground 1

    Genesis 45:6 For the famine has covered the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting.

    Exodus 34:21 Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in the seasons of plowing and harvesting, you must rest.

    Full study and all 3 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀροτριόω arotrióōI plowtranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G722Verb  ·  Translated: plowing 1, plowman 1, plows 1

    Luke 17:7 Which of you whose servant comes in from plowing or shepherding in the field will say to him, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’?

    1 Corinthians 9:10 Isn’t He actually speaking on our behalf? Indeed, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes , they should also expect to share in the harvest.

    Full study and all 2 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 plow: 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.