Word study
Rid
3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: riding, rid, rides. 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 “rid” 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)
- רָכַב râkabmount and ride, ridetranslated this way 18 times of its 77 uses · Strong’s H7392Verb · Translated: riding 12, ride 9, mounted 6, rider 5Full study and all 74 verses →
Leviticus 15:9 Any saddle on which the man with the discharge rides will be unclean.
Numbers 22:22 Then God’s anger was kindled because Balaam was going along, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding his donkey, and his two servants were with him.
- שָׁבַת shâbathcease, desist, resttranslated this way 3 times of its 71 uses · Strong’s H7673Verb · Translated: put an end 13, cease 5, rest 5, rested 4Full study and all 67 verses →
Leviticus 26:6 And I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to fear. I will rid the land of dangerous animals, and no sword will pass through your land.
Isaiah 30:11 Get out of the way; turn off the road. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel!”
- סוּר sûrturn asidetranslated this way 2 times of its 294 uses · Strong’s H5493Verb · Translated: removed 46, remove 38, turn away 23, turn aside 16Full study and all 277 verses →
Genesis 35:2 So Jacob told his household and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your garments.
Joshua 24:23 “Now, therefore,” he said, “get rid of the foreign gods among you and incline your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.”
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 →
- ἀποτίθημι apotíthēmiI lay off or aside, renouncetranslated this way 2 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s G659Verb · Translated: put 3Full study and all 9 verses →
James 1:21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and every expression of evil, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save your souls.
1 Peter 2:1 Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander.
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.