Word study

Privately

3 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “privately”. 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 “privately” 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)

  • סֵתֶר sêthercovering, hiding-place, secrecytranslated this way 2 times of its 36 uses · Strong’s H5643Noun  ·  Translated: secret 10, secretly 5, hiding place 4, shelter 3

    Jeremiah 37:17 Later, King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah and received him in his palace, where he asked him privately, “Is there a word from the LORD?” “There is,” Jeremiah replied. “You will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.”

    Jeremiah 40:15 Then Johanan son of Kareah spoke privately to Gedaliah at Mizpah. “Let me go and kill Ishmael son of Nethaniah,” he said. “No one will know it. Why should he take your life and scatter all the people of Judah who have gathered to you, so that the remnant of Judah would perish?”

    Full study and all 36 verses →
  • לָט lâṭsecrecy, mysterytranslated this way 1 time of its 5 uses · Strong’s H3909Noun  ·  Translated: magic arts 2, using their magic arts 1, privately 1, stealthily 1

    1 Samuel 18:22 Then Saul ordered his servants, “Speak to David privately and tell him, ‘Behold, the king is pleased with you, and all his servants love you. Now therefore, become his son-in-law.’”

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • אֵת êthwithtranslated this way 1 time of its 640 uses · Strong’s H854Preposition  ·  Translated: with 144, with you 64, with him 62, with me 35

    2 Samuel 3:27 When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside into the gateway, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died on account of the blood of Joab’s brother Asahel.

    Full study and all 585 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἴδιος ídiosone's own, private, personaltranslated this way 10 times of its 95 uses · Strong’s G2398Adjective  ·  Translated: own 53, privately 10, his own 9, themselves 3

    Matthew 14:13 When Jesus heard about John , He withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. But the crowds found out about it and followed Him on foot from the towns.

    Mark 4:34 He did not tell them anything without using a parable. But privately He explained everything to His own disciples.

    Full study and all 91 verses →
  • μόνος mónosonly, solitary, desolatetranslated this way 1 time of its 43 uses · Strong’s G3441Adjective  ·  Translated: only 19, alone 16, the only 3

    Matthew 18:15 If your brother sins against you, go and confront him privately. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.

    Full study and all 42 verses →
  • αὐτός autóshe, she, it, they, them, sametranslated this way 1 time of its 4,051 uses · Strong’s G846Personal / Possessive Pronoun  ·  Translated: him 1,014, his 849, them 557, their 272Full study and all 2,999 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.