Word study

Rumble

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רַעַשׁ raashquaking, shakingtranslated this way 3 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s H7494Noun  ·  Translated: earthquake 7, rumbling 3, Trembling 2

    Jeremiah 47:3 at the sound of the galloping hooves of stallions, the rumbling of chariots, and the clatter of their wheels. The fathers will not turn back for their sons; their hands will hang limp.

    Ezekiel 3:12 Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me: “Blessed be the glory of the LORD in His dwelling place!”

    Full study and all 15 verses →
  • הֶגֶה hegeha rumbling, growling, moaningtranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H1899Noun  ·  Translated: rumbling 1, sigh 1, mourning 1

    Job 37:2 Listen closely to the thunder of His voice and the rumbling that comes from His mouth.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • שָׁאוֹן shâônroartranslated this way 1 time of its 18 uses · Strong’s H7588Noun  ·  Translated: uproar 4, tumult 4, noise 2

    Isaiah 17:12 Alas, the tumult of many peoples; they rage like the roaring seas and clamoring nations; they rumble like the crashing of mighty waters.

    Full study and all 16 verses →
  • קוֹל qôlsound, voicetranslated this way 1 time of its 425 uses · Strong’s H6963Noun  ·  Translated: voice 197, sound 63, voices 22, thunder 11

    Nahum 3:2 The crack of the whip, the rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!

    Full study and all 378 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • φωνή phōnḗa sound, noise, voicetranslated this way 6 times of its 136 uses · Strong’s G5456Noun  ·  Translated: voice 83, loud voice 13, sound 8, voices 8

    Revelation 4:5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder. Before the throne burned seven torches of fire. These are the seven spirits of God.

    Revelation 8:5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it to the earth; and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

    Full study and all 125 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.