Word study

Roof

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: roof, roofed, roofing, roofs. 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 “roof” 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)

  • גָּג gâgroof, toptranslated this way 16 times of its 29 uses · Strong’s H1406Noun  ·  Translated: roof 14, rooftops 10, top 2, around your roof 1

    Deuteronomy 22:8 If you build a new house, you are to construct a railing around your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if someone falls from it.

    Joshua 2:6 (But Rahab had taken them up to the roof and hidden them among the stalks of flax that she had laid out there.)

    Full study and all 27 verses →
  • חֵךְ chêkpalate, roof of mouth, gumstranslated this way 4 times of its 18 uses · Strong’s H2441Noun  ·  Translated: mouth 7, taste 3

    Job 29:10 The voices of the nobles were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roofs of their mouths.

    Psalm 137:6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • סָפַן sâphancover, cover in, paneltranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H5603Verb  ·  Translated: paneled 2, reserved 1, roofing 1, roofed 1

    1 Kings 6:9 So Solomon built the temple and finished it, roofing it with beams and planks of cedar.

    1 Kings 7:3 The house was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the pillars — forty-five beams, fifteen per row.

    Full study and all 6 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • στέγη stégēa flat roof of a housetranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G4721Noun  ·  Translated: roof 3

    Matthew 8:8 The centurion answered, “Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

    Mark 2:4 Since they were unable to get to Jesus through the crowd, they uncovered the roof above Him, made an opening, and lowered the paralytic on his mat.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • δῶμα dōmathe top of the housetranslated this way 2 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s G1430Noun  ·  Translated: housetop 3, housetops 2, roof 2

    Luke 5:19 but they could not find a way through the crowd. So they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.

    Acts 10:9 The next day at about the sixth hour, as the men were approaching the city on their journey, Peter went up on the roof to pray.

    Full study and all 7 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 roof: 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.