Word study
Pull
5 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: pulled, pull, pulls. 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 “pull” 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)
- נָסַע nâsapull out or up, set out, journeytranslated this way 4 times of its 146 uses · Strong’s H5265Verb · Translated: set 91, journeyed 4, moved 4, pulled 4Full study and all 139 verses →
Judges 16:3 But Samson lay there only until midnight, when he got up, took hold of the doors of the city gate and both gateposts, and pulled them out, bar and all. Then he put them on his shoulders and took them to the top of the mountain overlooking Hebron.
Job 4:21 Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’’’
- נָתַץ nâthatspull down, break downtranslated this way 3 times of its 42 uses · Strong’s H5422Verb · Translated: tear 11, torn 10, tore 8, broke 4Full study and all 41 verses →
Judges 8:17 He also pulled down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.
2 Kings 23:12 He pulled down the altars that the kings of Judah had set up on the roof near the upper chamber of Ahaz, and the altars that Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the house of the LORD. The king pulverized them there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.
- יָרַד yâradcome or go down, descendtranslated this way 3 times of its 372 uses · Strong’s H3381Verb · Translated: went 56, go 55, come 35, came 26Full study and all 341 verses →
Proverbs 21:22 A wise man scales the city of the mighty and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust.
Amos 3:11 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: “An enemy will surround the land; he will pull down your strongholds and plunder your citadels.”
- מָשַׁךְ mâshakdraw, dragtranslated this way 2 times of its 34 uses · Strong’s H4900Verb · Translated: draw 3, drew 2, tall 2, Extend 2Full study and all 34 verses →
Genesis 37:28 So when the Midianite traders passed by, his brothers pulled Joseph out of the pit and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
Job 41:1 “Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook or tie down his tongue with a rope?
- מָרַט mâraṭmake smooth, bare, bald; scour, polishtranslated this way 2 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H4803Verb · Translated: polished 5, smooth-skinned 2Full study and all 13 verses →
Ezra 9:3 When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled out some hair from my head and beard, and sat down in horror.
Nehemiah 13:25 I rebuked them and called down curses on them. I beat some of these men and pulled out their hair. Then I made them take an oath before God and said, “You must not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters as wives for your sons or for yourselves!
Greek words (New Testament)
- αἴρω aírōI raise, lift uptranslated this way 2 times of its 100 uses · Strong’s G142Verb · Translated: take 15, picked 10, pick 8, taken away 7Full study and all 96 verses →
Matthew 9:16 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. For the patch will pull away from the garment, and a worse tear will result.
Mark 2:21 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, and a worse tear will result.
- συλλέγω syllégōI collect, gathertranslated this way 2 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s G4816Verb · Translated: pull 2Full study and all 8 verses →
Matthew 13:28 ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. So the servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
Matthew 13:29 ‘No,’ he said, ‘if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them.
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.
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.