Word study
Plunge
4 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: plunge, plunged, plunging. 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 “plunge” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- תָּקַע tâqathrust, clap, give a blow, blasttranslated this way 1 time of its 65 uses · Strong’s H8628Verb · Translated: blew 15, blow 11, sound 7, sounded 4Full study and all 60 verses →
Judges 3:21 And Ehud reached with his left hand, pulled the sword from his right thigh, and plunged it into Eglon’s belly.
- נָכָה nâkâhsmitetranslated this way 1 time of its 496 uses · Strong’s H5221Verb · Translated: struck 145, strike 59, put 31, defeated 28Full study and all 460 verses →
1 Samuel 2:14 and plunge it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or cooking pot. And the priest would claim for himself whatever the meat fork brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.
- טָבַל ṭâbaldiptranslated this way 1 time of its 16 uses · Strong’s H2881Verb · Translated: dip 9, dipped 5, touched 1, plunge 1Full study and all 16 verses →
Job 9:31 then You would plunge me into the pit, and even my own clothes would despise me.
- נָפַל nâphalfall, lietranslated this way 1 time of its 432 uses · Strong’s H5307Verb · Translated: fall 104, fell 77, fallen 54, falls 21Full study and all 403 verses →
Ezekiel 13:11 tell those whitewashing the wall that it will fall. Rain will come in torrents, I will send hailstones plunging down, and a windstorm will burst forth.
Greek words (New Testament)
- σκοτόω skotóōI darkentranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s G4656Verb · Translated: darkened 2, plunged into darkness 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Revelation 16:10 And the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness, and men began to gnaw their tongues in anguish
- βυθίζω bythízōI cause to sink, sinktranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s G1036Verb · Translated: began to sink 1, plunge 1Full study and all 2 verses →
1 Timothy 6:9 Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.
- συντρέχω syntréchōI run withtranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s G4936Verb · Translated: ran together 1, ran 1, plunge 1Full study and all 3 verses →
1 Peter 4:4 Because of this, they consider it strange of you not to plunge with them into the same flood of reckless indiscretion, and they heap abuse on you.
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.