Word study

Sailor

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מַלָּח mallâchmarinertranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H4419Noun  ·  Translated: sailors 4

    Ezekiel 27:9 The elders of Gebal were aboard as shipwrights, repairing your leaks. All the ships of the sea and their sailors came alongside to barter for your merchandise.

    Jonah 1:5 The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • אֳנִיָּה ŏnîâha shiptranslated this way 1 time of its 28 uses · Strong’s H591Noun  ·  Translated: ships 21, ship 4, sailors 1, boats 1

    1 Kings 9:27 And Hiram sent his servants, sailors who knew the sea, to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s servants.

    Full study and all 27 verses →
  • יָדַע yâdaknowtranslated this way 1 time of its 914 uses · Strong’s H3045Verb  ·  Translated: know 453, known 53, knows 48, knew 38

    2 Chronicles 8:18 So Hiram sent him ships captained by his servants, along with crews of experienced sailors. They went with Solomon’s servants to Ophir and acquired from there 450 talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.

    Full study and all 863 verses →
  • חֹבֵל chôbêlsailortranslated this way 1 time of its 4 uses · Strong’s H2259Noun  ·  Translated: captains 3, sailors 1

    Ezekiel 27:28 The countryside will shake when your sailors cry out.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • אָמַר âmarutter, saytranslated this way 1 time of its 4,555 uses · Strong’s H559Verb  ·  Translated: said 1,531, says 576, say 352, replied 341Full study and all 3,827 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ναύτης naútēsa sailortranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G3492Noun  ·  Translated: sailors 2, sailor 1

    Acts 27:27 On the fourteenth night we were still being driven across the Adriatic Sea. About midnight the sailors sensed they were approaching land.

    Revelation 18:17 For in a single hour such fabulous wealth has been destroyed!” Every shipmaster, passenger, and sailor, and all who make their living from the sea, will stand at a distance

    Full study and all 3 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.