Word study

Retrieve

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • לָקַח lâqachtaketranslated this way 4 times of its 938 uses · Strong’s H3947Verb  ·  Translated: take 247, took 245, taken 40, get 26

    Exodus 2:5 Soon the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And when she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maidservant to retrieve it.

    1 Samuel 31:12 all their men of valor set out, journeyed all night, and retrieved the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth-shan. When they arrived at Jabesh, they burned the bodies there.

    Full study and all 890 verses →
  • שׁוּב shûbturn back, returntranslated this way 2 times of its 1,007 uses · Strong’s H7725Verb  ·  Translated: return 218, returned 105, restore 62, turn 56

    Genesis 14:16 He retrieved all the goods, as well as his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the rest of the people.

    Psalm 68:22 The Lord said, “I will retrieve them from Bashan, I will bring them up from the depths of the sea,

    Full study and all 920 verses →
  • נָשָׂא nâsâlift, take, carrytranslated this way 1 time of its 642 uses · Strong’s H5375Verb  ·  Translated: bear 49, lift 45, lifted 41, carried 38

    1 Chronicles 10:12 all their men of valor set out and retrieved the bodies of Saul and his sons and brought them to Jabesh. And they buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh and fasted seven days.

    Full study and all 601 verses →
  • מָלַט mâlaṭslip awaytranslated this way 1 time of its 93 uses · Strong’s H4422Verb  ·  Translated: escaped 22, escape 20, deliver 6, delivered 5

    Isaiah 49:25 Indeed, this is what the LORD says: “Even the captives of the mighty will be taken away, and the plunder of the tyrant will be retrieved; I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.

    Full study and all 85 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • αἴρω aírōI raise, lift uptranslated this way 3 times of its 100 uses · Strong’s G142Verb  ·  Translated: take 15, picked 10, pick 8, taken away 7

    Matthew 24:17 Let no one on the housetop come down to retrieve anything from his house.

    Mark 13:15 Let no one on the housetop go back inside to retrieve anything from his house.

    Full study and all 96 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.