Word study

Sank

6 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “sank”. 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 “sank” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • טָבַע ṭâbasink, sink downtranslated this way 3 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H2883Verb  ·  Translated: sank 3, sunk 2

    1 Samuel 17:49 Then David reached into his bag, took out a stone, and slung it, striking the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

    Jeremiah 38:6 So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah with ropes into the cistern, which had no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.

    Full study and all 10 verses →
  • יָצָא yâtsâgo or come outtranslated this way 2 times of its 1,035 uses · Strong’s H3318Verb  ·  Translated: brought 108, went 103, go 82, came 78

    Genesis 42:28 “My silver has been returned!” he said to his brothers. “It is here in my sack.” Their hearts sank, and trembling, they turned to one another and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”

    Full study and all 975 verses →
  • יָרַד yâradcome or go down, descendtranslated this way 2 times of its 372 uses · Strong’s H3381Verb  ·  Translated: went 56, go 55, come 35, came 26

    Exodus 15:5 The depths have covered them; they sank there like a stone.

    Psalm 104:8 the mountains rose and the valleys sank to the place You assigned for them —

    Full study and all 341 verses →
  • צָלַל tsâlalsink, be submergedtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H6749Verb  ·  Translated: sank 1

    Exodus 15:10 But You blew with Your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • בּוֹא bôcome in, come, go in, gotranslated this way 1 time of its 2,442 uses · Strong’s H935Verb  ·  Translated: come 358, came 298, bring 209, brought 201Full study and all 2,217 verses →
  • מָכַךְ mâkakbe low, humiliatedtranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H4355Verb  ·  Translated: brought low 1, sank 1, caves 1

    Psalm 106:43 Many times He rescued them, but they were bent on rebellion and sank down in their iniquity.

    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.