Word study

Road

2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • דֶּרֶךְ derekway, road, distance, journey, mannertranslated this way 74 times of its 653 uses · Strong’s H1870Noun  ·  Translated: way 204, ways 166, road 54, journey 35

    Genesis 16:7 Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert — the spring along the road to Shur.

    Exodus 13:17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them along the road through the land of the Philistines, though it was shorter. For God said, “If the people face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”

    Full study and all 595 verses →
  • מְסִלָּה mesillâhhighwaytranslated this way 11 times of its 27 uses · Strong’s H4546Noun  ·  Translated: highway 8, road 7, roads 3, highways 2

    Numbers 20:19 “We will stay on the main road,” the Israelites replied, “and if we or our herds drink your water, we will pay for it. There will be no problem; only let us pass through on foot.”

    Judges 20:31 The Benjamites came out against them and were drawn away from the city. They began to attack the people as before, killing about thirty men of Israel in the fields and on the roads, one of which led up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah.

    Full study and all 26 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ὁδός hodósa way, road, journeytranslated this way 22 times of its 97 uses · Strong’s G3598Noun  ·  Translated: way 49, road 22, path 8, ways 6

    Matthew 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go onto the road of the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.

    Mark 10:32 As they were going up the road to Jerusalem, Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were amazed, but those who followed were afraid. Again Jesus took the Twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him:

    Full study and all 95 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.