Word study

Provoke

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: provoke, provoked, provoking, provokes. 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 “provoke” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • כַּעַס kaasbe vexed, angrytranslated this way 41 times of its 53 uses · Strong’s H3707Verb  ·  Translated: provoke me to anger 9, provoked 8, provoking him to anger 6, provoking 6

    Deuteronomy 4:25 After you have children and grandchildren and you have been in the land a long time, if you then act corruptly and make an idol of any form— doing evil in the sight of the LORD your God and provoking Him to anger—

    Judges 2:12 Thus they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed after various gods of the peoples around them. They bowed down to them and provoked the LORD to anger,

    Full study and all 52 verses →
  • קָנָא qânâbe jealous, zealoustranslated this way 5 times of its 32 uses · Strong’s H7065Verb  ·  Translated: jealous 6, envy 6, envied 4, zealous 4

    Deuteronomy 32:16 They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.

    1 Kings 14:22 And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and by the sins they committed they provoked Him to jealous anger more than all their fathers had done.

    Full study and all 29 verses →
  • קָצַף qâtsaphbe wrothtranslated this way 4 times of its 33 uses · Strong’s H7107Verb  ·  Translated: angry 18, grew angry 2, provoked 2

    Deuteronomy 9:7 Remember this, and never forget how you provoked the LORD your God in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place, you have been rebelling against the LORD.

    Zechariah 8:14 For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Just as I resolved to bring disaster upon you when your fathers provoked Me to anger, and I did not relent,” says the LORD of Hosts,

    Full study and all 32 verses →
  • גָּרָה gârâhengage in strifetranslated this way 3 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H1624Verb  ·  Translated: provoke 3, stirs 3, stir 2

    Deuteronomy 2:5 Do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even a footprint, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as his possession.

    Deuteronomy 2:9 Then the LORD said to me, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as their possession.”

    Full study and all 13 verses →
  • כַּעַס kaasvexation, angertranslated this way 2 times of its 26 uses · Strong’s H3708Noun  ·  Translated: grief 5, anger 5, sorrow 5

    Deuteronomy 32:19 When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.

    Ezekiel 20:28 When I brought them into the land that I swore to give them and they saw any high hill or leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices, presented offerings that provoked Me, sent up their fragrant incense, and poured out their drink offerings.

    Full study and all 26 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

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.