Word study
Prostitution
4 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “prostitution”. 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 “prostitution” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- תַּזְנוּת taznûthfornicationtranslated this way 7 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H8457Noun · Translated: prostitution 6, promiscuity 6, lust 2Full study and all 18 verses →
Ezekiel 16:20 You even took the sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to idols. Was your prostitution not enough?
Ezekiel 16:22 And in all your abominations and acts of prostitution, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your own blood.
- זָנָה zânâhcommit fornication, be a harlottranslated this way 6 times of its 89 uses · Strong’s H2181Verb · Translated: prostitute 29, prostituted 16, prostitutes 7, harlot 5Full study and all 81 verses →
Leviticus 21:7 A priest must not marry a woman defiled by prostitution or divorced by her husband, for the priest is holy to his God.
Ezekiel 16:41 Then they will burn down your houses and execute judgment against you in the sight of many women. I will put an end to your prostitution, and you will never again pay your lovers.
- זְנוּת zenûthfornicationtranslated this way 6 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s H2184Noun · Translated: prostitution 5, unfaithfulness 1, her 1, promiscuity 1Full study and all 9 verses →
Jeremiah 3:2 “Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.
Ezekiel 23:27 So I will put an end to your indecency and prostitution, which began in the land of Egypt, and you will not lift your eyes to them or remember Egypt anymore.’
- זָנוּן zânûnadultery, idolatrytranslated this way 4 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H2183Noun · Translated: prostitution 4, adultery 3, idolatry 1, prostitute 1Full study and all 8 verses →
Ezekiel 23:29 They will treat you with hatred, take all for which you have worked, and leave you naked and bare, so that the shame of your prostitution will be exposed. Your indecency and promiscuity
Hosea 4:12 My people consult their wooden idols, and their divining rods inform them. For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray and they have played the harlot against their God.
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.
What the Bible says about prostitution: passages by topic →
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.