Word study
Pool
2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: pool, pools. 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 “pool” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- בְּרֵכָה berêkâhpool, pondtranslated this way 15 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H1295Noun · Translated: pool 13, reservoirs 1, like the pools 1, like a pool 1Full study and all 15 verses →
2 Samuel 2:13 So Joab son of Zeruiah and the servants of David marched out and met them by the pool of Gibeon. And the two groups took up positions on opposite sides of the pool.
1 Kings 22:38 And the chariot was washed at the pool of Samaria where the prostitutes bathed, and the dogs licked up Ahab’s blood, according to the word that the LORD had spoken.
- אֲגַם ăgamtroubled pooltranslated this way 4 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H98Noun · Translated: pool 3, ponds 2, marshes 2, pools 1Full study and all 9 verses →
Psalm 107:35 He turns a desert into pools of water and a dry land into flowing springs.
Isaiah 35:7 The parched ground will become a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. In the haunt where jackals once lay, there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.
Greek words (New Testament)
- κολυμβήθρα kolymbḗthraa pool, swimming-placetranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G2861Noun · Translated: pool 3Full study and all 3 verses →
John 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool with five covered colonnades, which in Hebrew is called Bethesda.
John 5:7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.”
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.
What the Bible says about pool: 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.