Word study

Rear

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • יְרֵכָה yerêkâhflank, sidetranslated this way 5 times of its 28 uses · Strong’s H3411Noun  ·  Translated: rear 4, ends 3, far 3, two back 2

    Exodus 26:22 Make six frames for the rear of the tabernacle, the west side,

    1 Kings 6:16 He partitioned off the twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.

    Full study and all 28 verses →
  • אָסַף âsaphgather, removetranslated this way 5 times of its 193 uses · Strong’s H622Verb  ·  Translated: gathered 56, gather 27, assembled 13, assemble 8

    Numbers 10:25 Finally, the divisions of the camp of Dan set out under their standard, serving as the rear guard for all units, with Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai in command.

    Joshua 6:9 While the horns continued to sound, the armed troops marched ahead of the priests who blew the horns, and the rear guard followed the ark.

    Full study and all 183 verses →
  • אַחַר acharbehindtranslated this way 2 times of its 556 uses · Strong’s H310Preposition  ·  Translated: after 123, behind 56, and after 22, after that 19Full study and all 533 verses →
  • גָּדַל gâdalgrow up, become greattranslated this way 2 times of its 115 uses · Strong’s H1431Verb  ·  Translated: great 14, grew 10, grown 7, greater 7

    Job 31:18 though from my youth I reared him as would a father, and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow —

    Isaiah 49:21 Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. So who has reared them? Look, I was left all alone, so where did they come from?’”

    Full study and all 114 verses →
  • רָבָה râbâhbe, or become, much, many, greattranslated this way 2 times of its 219 uses · Strong’s H7235Verb  ·  Translated: multiply 39, multiplied 23, many 15, much 10

    Lamentations 2:22 You summoned my terrors on every side, as for the day of an appointed feast. In the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped or survived; my enemy has destroyed those I nurtured and reared.

    Ezekiel 19:2 and say: ‘What was your mother? A lioness among the lions! She lay down among the young lions; she reared her cubs.

    Full study and all 207 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.