Word study
Pollute
4 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: polluted, pollutes, pollute. 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 “pollute” 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)
- חָנֵף chânêphpolluted, profanetranslated this way 3 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H2610Verb · Translated: defiled 4Full study and all 9 verses →
Numbers 35:33 Do not pollute the land where you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land on which the blood is shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.
Psalm 106:38 They shed innocent blood— the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
- נִדָּה niddâhimpuritytranslated this way 1 time of its 26 uses · Strong’s H5079Noun · Translated: menstruation 4, menstrual period 3, purification 3, of 3Full study and all 22 verses →
Ezra 9:11 that You gave through Your servants the prophets, saying: ‘The land that you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the impurity of its peoples and the abominations with which they have filled it from end to end.
- שָׁחַת shâchathgo to ruin (?)translated this way 1 time of its 145 uses · Strong’s H7843Verb · Translated: destroy 58, destroyed 13, corrupt 7, corrupted 5Full study and all 135 verses →
Proverbs 25:26 Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked.
- פִּגּוּל piggûlfoul thing, refusetranslated this way 1 time of its 4 uses · Strong’s H6292Noun · Translated: abomination 1, tainted 1, polluted broth 1, unclean 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Isaiah 65:4 sitting among the graves, spending nights in secret places, eating the meat of pigs and polluted broth from their bowls.
Greek words (New Testament)
- σπιλόω spilóōI defile, spottranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s G4695Verb · Translated: pollutes 1, stained 1Full study and all 2 verses →
James 3:6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of wickedness among the parts of the body. It pollutes the whole person, sets the course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
- ἀλίσγεμα alísgemapollution, perhaps a polluted thingtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G234Noun · Translated: polluted 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Acts 15:20 Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood.
- ἄσπιλος áspilosunstained, undefiledtranslated this way 1 time of its 4 uses · Strong’s G784Adjective · Translated: without stain 1, polluted 1, spot 1, spotless 1Full study and all 4 verses →
James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
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.