Word study

Purge

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • בָּעַר bâarburn, consumetranslated this way 12 times of its 93 uses · Strong’s H1197Verb  ·  Translated: purge 12, burn 10, burned 7, burning 6

    Deuteronomy 13:5 Such a prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he has advocated rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery; he has tried to turn you from the way in which the LORD your God has commanded you to walk. So you must purge the evil from among you.

    Judges 20:13 Hand over the wicked men of Gibeah so we can put them to death and purge Israel of this evil.” But the Benjamites refused to heed the voice of their fellow Israelites.

    Full study and all 90 verses →
  • צָרַף tsâraphsmelt, refine, testtranslated this way 1 time of its 30 uses · Strong’s H6884Verb  ·  Translated: refined 5, goldsmith 5, flawless 3, silversmith 2

    Isaiah 1:25 I will turn My hand against you; I will thoroughly purge your dross; I will remove all your impurities.

    Full study and all 29 verses →
  • בָּרַר bârarpurify, selecttranslated this way 1 time of its 18 uses · Strong’s H1305Verb  ·  Translated: pure 3, show yourself pure 2, choice 2, chosen 2

    Ezekiel 20:38 And I will purge you of those who rebel and transgress against Me. I will bring them out of the land in which they dwell, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

    Full study and all 16 verses →
  • תָּמַם tâmambe complete, finishedtranslated this way 1 time of its 56 uses · Strong’s H8552Verb  ·  Translated: gone 6, finished 4, consumed 4, meet their end 3

    Ezekiel 22:15 I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you throughout the lands; I will purge your uncleanness.

    Full study and all 54 verses →
  • נָתַק nâthaqpull, draw, tear away, apart, offtranslated this way 1 time of its 26 uses · Strong’s H5423Verb  ·  Translated: broken 4, torn 3, snapped 3, tear 3

    Jeremiah 6:29 The bellows blow fiercely, blasting away the lead with fire. The refining proceeds in vain, for the wicked are not purged.

    Full study and all 25 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.