Word study

Prevent

3 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: prevent, prevented. 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 “prevent” 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)

  • נָתַן nâthangive, put, settranslated this way 2 times of its 1,957 uses · Strong’s H5414Verb  ·  Translated: give 326, gave 206, given 187, put 135Full study and all 1,785 verses →
  • עָצָר âtsârrestrain, retaintranslated this way 1 time of its 44 uses · Strong’s H6113Verb  ·  Translated: halted 6, slave 5, shut 4, confined 3

    Genesis 16:2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

    Full study and all 44 verses →
  • גָּאַל gâalredeem, act as kinsmantranslated this way 1 time of its 100 uses · Strong’s H1350Verb  ·  Translated: redeemed 25, redeem 21, Redeemer 19, avenger 12

    2 Samuel 14:11 “Please,” she replied, “may the king invoke the LORD your God to prevent the avenger of blood from increasing the devastation, so that my son may not be destroyed!” “As surely as the LORD lives,” he vowed, “not a hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.”

    Full study and all 84 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • κωλύω kōlýōI prevent, hindertranslated this way 3 times of its 23 uses · Strong’s G2967Verb  ·  Translated: hinder 4, prevented 3, tried to stop 2, stop 2

    Acts 16:6 After the Holy Spirit had prevented them from speaking the word in the province of Asia, they traveled through the region of Phrygia and Galatia.

    Romans 1:13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, how often I planned to come to you (but have been prevented from visiting until now), in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

    Full study and all 23 verses →
  • διακωλύω diakōlýōI obstinately prevent, hindertranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G1254Verb  ·  Translated: tried to prevent 1

    Matthew 3:14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?”

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • παραδίδωμι paradídōmiI hand over, deliver, betraytranslated this way 1 time of its 119 uses · Strong’s G3860Verb  ·  Translated: betray 19, handed 19, delivered 10, hand 9

    John 18:36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world; if it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My kingdom is not of this realm.”

    Full study and all 117 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.