Word study

Rod

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: rod, rods. 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 “rod” 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)

  • שֵׁבֶט shêbeṭrod, staff, club, sceptretranslated this way 25 times of its 168 uses · Strong’s H7626Noun  ·  Translated: tribes 70, tribe 42, rod 22, scepter 14

    Exodus 21:20 If a man strikes his manservant or maidservant with a rod, and the servant dies by his hand, he shall surely be punished.

    Leviticus 27:32 Every tenth animal from the herd or flock that passes under the shepherd’s rod will be holy to the LORD.

    Full study and all 159 verses →
  • קָנֶה qânehstalk, reedtranslated this way 9 times of its 46 uses · Strong’s H7070Noun  ·  Translated: branches 9, rod 9, reeds 5, branch 4

    Ezekiel 40:3 So He took me there, and I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze. He was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand.

    Ezekiel 40:5 And I saw a wall surrounding the temple area. Now the length of the measuring rod in the man’s hand was six long cubits (each measuring a cubit and a handbreadth), and he measured the wall to be one rod thick and one rod high.

    Full study and all 37 verses →
  • מַטֶּה maṭṭehstaff, rod, shafttranslated this way 4 times of its 219 uses · Strong’s H4294Noun  ·  Translated: tribe 123, staff 41, tribes 21, staffs 5

    Isaiah 30:32 And with every stroke of the rod of punishment that the LORD brings down on them, the tambourines and lyres will sound as He battles with weapons brandished.

    Ezekiel 7:10 Behold, the day is here! It has come! Doom has gone out, the rod has budded, arrogance has bloomed.

    Full study and all 200 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • κάλαμος kálamosa reed, reed-pentranslated this way 3 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s G2563Noun  ·  Translated: reed 5, staff 3, rod 2, pen 1

    Revelation 11:1 Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the number of worshipers there.

    Revelation 21:15 The angel who spoke with me had a golden measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and walls.

    Full study and all 12 verses →
  • ῥαβδίζω rhabdízōI beat with rods, scourgetranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G4463Verb  ·  Translated: beaten with rods 2

    Acts 16:22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered that they be stripped and beaten with rods.

    2 Corinthians 11:25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea.

    Full study and all 2 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.