Word study

Quake

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: quake, quaked, quakes, quaking. 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 “quake” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רָעַשׁ râashquake, shaketranslated this way 13 times of its 30 uses · Strong’s H7493Verb  ·  Translated: quake 6, shake 6, tremble 4, quaked 3

    2 Samuel 22:8 Then the earth shook and quaked; the foundations of the heavens trembled; they were shaken because He burned with anger.

    Psalm 18:7 Then the earth shook and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains trembled; they were shaken because He burned with anger.

    Full study and all 30 verses →
  • רָגַז râgazbe agitated, quiver, quake, be excited, perturbedtranslated this way 4 times of its 41 uses · Strong’s H7264Verb  ·  Translated: tremble 10, trembled 5, disturbed 3, shaken 2

    1 Samuel 14:15 Then panic struck the Philistines in the camp, in the field, and among all the people. Even those in the outposts and raiding parties trembled. Indeed, the earth quaked, and panic spread from God.

    Isaiah 5:25 Therefore the anger of the LORD burns against His people; His hand is raised against them to strike them down. The mountains quake, and the corpses lie like refuse in the streets. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

    Full study and all 40 verses →
  • חָרַד châradtremble, be terrifiedtranslated this way 2 times of its 39 uses · Strong’s H2729Verb  ·  Translated: trembled 5, tremble 5, frighten 4, fear 3

    Exodus 19:18 Mount Sinai was completely enveloped in smoke, because the LORD had descended on it in fire. And the smoke rose like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently.

    1 Samuel 13:7 Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan into the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul, however, remained at Gilgal, and all his troops were quaking in fear.

    Full study and all 39 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • σεισμός seismósan earthquake, stormtranslated this way 2 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s G4578Noun  ·  Translated: earthquake 8, earthquakes 3, quake 2, storm 1

    Revelation 11:13 And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand were killed in the quake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

    Revelation 16:18 And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake the likes of which had not occurred since men were upon the earth — so mighty was the great quake.

    Full study and all 12 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.