Word study

Preserve

6 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: preserve, preserved, preserves, preserving. 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 “preserve” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שָׁמַר shâmarkeep, watch, preservetranslated this way 15 times of its 461 uses · Strong’s H8104Verb  ·  Translated: keep 133, careful 39, kept 33, guard 25

    Genesis 41:35 Under the authority of Pharaoh, let them collect all the excess food from these good years, that they may come and lay up the grain to be preserved as food in the cities.

    2 Samuel 22:44 You have delivered me from the strife of my people; You have preserved me as the head of nations; a people I had not known shall serve me.

    Full study and all 436 verses →
  • חָיָה châyâhlivetranslated this way 10 times of its 265 uses · Strong’s H2421Verb  ·  Translated: live 96, lived 24, was 17, revive 14

    Genesis 7:3 and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth.

    Deuteronomy 6:24 And the LORD commanded us to observe all these statutes and to fear the LORD our God, that we may always be prosperous and preserved, as we are to this day.

    Full study and all 254 verses →
  • נָצַר nâtsarwatch, guard, keeptranslated this way 6 times of its 59 uses · Strong’s H5341Verb  ·  Translated: keep 10, guard 9, obey 7, preserve 5

    Psalm 25:21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me, because I wait for You.

    Proverbs 3:21 My son, do not lose sight of this: Preserve sound judgment and discernment.

    Full study and all 58 verses →
  • שׂוּם sûmput, place, settranslated this way 3 times of its 560 uses · Strong’s H7760Verb  ·  Translated: put 84, set 71, make 45, made 39

    Genesis 45:7 God sent me before you to preserve you as a remnant on the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

    2 Samuel 14:7 Now the whole clan has risen up against your maidservant and said, ‘Hand over the one who struck down his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of the brother whom he killed. Then we will cut off the heir as well!’ So they would extinguish my one remaining ember by not preserving my husband’s name or posterity on the earth.”

    Full study and all 533 verses →
  • שָׁאַר shâarremain, be left overtranslated this way 2 times of its 126 uses · Strong’s H7604Verb  ·  Translated: left 24, remained 19, remain 15, survive 8

    Ezra 9:8 But now, for a brief moment, grace has come from the LORD our God to preserve for us a remnant and to give us a stake in His holy place. Even in our bondage, our God has given us new life and light to our eyes.

    Jeremiah 50:20 In those days and at that time, declares the LORD, a search will be made for Israel’s guilt, but there will be none, and for Judah’s sins, but they will not be found; for I will forgive the remnant I preserve.

    Full study and all 118 verses →
  • מִשְׁמֶרֶת mishmerethguard, watchtranslated this way 2 times of its 73 uses · Strong’s H4931Noun  ·  Translated: charge 20, duties 18, responsible 3, service 3

    Exodus 16:33 So Moses told Aaron, “Take a jar and fill it with an omer of manna. Then place it before the LORD to be preserved for the generations to come.”

    Exodus 16:34 And Aaron placed it in front of the Testimony, to be preserved just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

    Full study and all 66 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • φυλάσσω phylássōI keep, guard, observetranslated this way 2 times of its 31 uses · Strong’s G5442Verb  ·  Translated: guard 7, keep 5, kept 4, obey 2

    John 17:12 While I was with them, I protected and preserved them by Your name, the name You gave Me. Not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.

    2 Peter 2:5 if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight;

    Full study and all 31 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.

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.