Word study

Profit

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: profit, profits. 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 “profit” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • יָעַל yâalprofit, avail, benefittranslated this way 6 times of its 23 uses · Strong’s H3276Verb  ·  Translated: profit 5, benefit 4, worthless 2, idols 2

    1 Samuel 12:21 Do not turn aside after worthless things that cannot profit you or deliver you, for they are empty.

    Job 30:13 They tear up my path; they profit from my destruction, with no one to restrain them.

    Full study and all 21 verses →
  • בֶּצַע betsagain made by violence, unjust gain, profittranslated this way 3 times of its 22 uses · Strong’s H1215Noun  ·  Translated: gain 6, dishonest gain 4, unjust gain 3

    Genesis 37:26 Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

    Job 22:3 Does it delight the Almighty that you are righteous? Does He profit if your ways are blameless?

    Full study and all 22 verses →
  • סָכַן sâkanbe of use of service, benefittranslated this way 2 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H5532Verb  ·  Translated: before 1, care 1, cared 1, use 1

    Job 34:9 For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing that he should delight in God.’

    Job 35:3 For you ask, ‘What does it profit me, and what benefit do I gain apart from sin?’

    Full study and all 9 verses →
  • סַחַר sachartraffic, gaintranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H5504Noun  ·  Translated: profitable 1, gain 1, merchant 1, profits 1

    Isaiah 23:18 Yet her profits and wages will be set apart to the LORD; they will not be stored or saved, for her profit will go to those who live before the LORD, for abundant food and fine clothing.

    Full study and all 5 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ὠφελέω ōpheléōI help, benefit, do goodtranslated this way 4 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s G5623Verb  ·  Translated: value 4, profit 3, received 2

    Matthew 16:26 What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

    Mark 8:36 What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

    Full study and all 15 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.