Word study

Rock

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • צוּר tsûrrock, clifftranslated this way 67 times of its 77 uses · Strong’s H6697Noun  ·  Translated: rock 56, rocks 8, flint 2

    Exodus 17:6 Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.

    Deuteronomy 8:15 He led you through the vast and terrifying wilderness with its venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land. He brought you water from the rock of flint.

    Full study and all 73 verses →
  • סֶלַע selacrag, clifftranslated this way 41 times of its 54 uses · Strong’s H5553Noun  ·  Translated: rock 30, rocks 11, cliffs 5, cliff 3

    Numbers 20:8 “Take the staff and assemble the congregation. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch, and it will pour out its water. You will bring out water from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their livestock.”

    Deuteronomy 32:13 He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty crag,

    Full study and all 51 verses →
  • אֶבֶן ebenstonetranslated this way 8 times of its 242 uses · Strong’s H68Noun  ·  Translated: stones 92, stone 86, gemstones 7, weights 5

    Genesis 49:24 Yet he steadied his bow, and his strong arms were tempered by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, in the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,

    Deuteronomy 8:9 a land where you will eat food without scarcity, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and whose hills are ready to be mined for copper.

    Full study and all 217 verses →
  • שָׁפָן shâphânrock-badgertranslated this way 4 times of its 36 uses · Strong’s H8227Noun  ·  Translated: Shaphan 30, rock badger 2, Moreover 2, rock badgers 2

    Leviticus 11:5 The rock badger, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you.

    Deuteronomy 14:7 But of those that chew the cud or have a completely divided hoof, you are not to eat the following: the camel, the rabbit, or the rock badger. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof. They are unclean for you,

    Full study and all 28 verses →
  • כֵּף kêphrocktranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H3710Noun  ·  Translated: rocks 2

    Job 30:6 so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.

    Jeremiah 4:29 Every city flees at the sound of the horseman and archer. They enter the thickets and climb among the rocks. Every city is abandoned; no inhabitant is left.

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πέτρα pétrarocktranslated this way 13 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s G4073Noun  ·  Translated: rock 10, rocks 3, rocky ground 2

    Matthew 7:24 Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

    Mark 15:46 So Joseph bought a linen cloth, took down the body of Jesus, wrapped it in the cloth, and placed it in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.

    Full study and all 14 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.

What the Bible says about rock: passages by topic →

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.