Word study
Pregnant
2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “pregnant”. 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 “pregnant” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- הָרֶה hârehpregnanttranslated this way 9 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H2030Adjective · Translated: pregnant 7, conceive 2, pregnant women 2Full study and all 16 verses →
Genesis 38:24 About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has prostituted herself, and now she is pregnant.” “Bring her out!” Judah replied. “Let her be burned to death!”
Exodus 21:22 If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands and as the court allows.
- הָרָה hârâhconceive, become pregnanttranslated this way 4 times of its 43 uses · Strong’s H2029Verb · Translated: conceived 28, conceive 6, pregnant 2, became pregnant 2Full study and all 42 verses →
Genesis 16:4 And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.
Genesis 16:5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”
Greek words (New Testament)
- ἔχω échōI have, hold, possesstranslated this way 5 times of its 624 uses · Strong’s G2192Verb · Translated: has 63, have 52, with 35, you have 29Full study and all 560 verses →
Matthew 24:19 How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!
Mark 13:17 How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!
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.