Word study

Scourge

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • יָסַר yâsardiscipline, chasten, admonishtranslated this way 6 times of its 41 uses · Strong’s H3256Verb  ·  Translated: discipline 10, scourged 4, punish 3, disciplines 2

    1 Kings 12:11 Whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. Whereas my father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.’”

    2 Chronicles 10:11 Whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. Whereas my father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.’”

    Full study and all 38 verses →
  • שׁוֹט shôṭscourge, whiptranslated this way 3 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H7752Noun  ·  Translated: whips 4, scourge 3, whip 3

    Job 5:21 You will be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and will not fear havoc when it comes.

    Isaiah 28:18 Your covenant with death will be dissolved, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be trampled by it.

    Full study and all 10 verses →
  • שֹׁטֵט shôṭêṭscourgetranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H7850Noun  ·  Translated: scourge 1

    Joshua 23:13 know for sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become for you a snare and a trap, a scourge in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the LORD your God has given you.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • נֶגַע negastroke, plague, mark, plague-spottranslated this way 1 time of its 64 uses · Strong’s H5061Noun  ·  Translated: infection 12, mildew 12, contaminated 6, plague 4

    Psalm 39:10 Remove Your scourge from me; I am perishing by the force of Your hand.

    Full study and all 56 verses →
  • שָׁטַף shâṭaphoverflow, rinse or wash offtranslated this way 1 time of its 30 uses · Strong’s H7857Verb  ·  Translated: rinsed 3, torrents 3, overflowing 2, like a flood 2

    Isaiah 28:15 For you said, “We have made a covenant with death; we have fashioned an agreement with Sheol. When the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not touch us, because we have made lies our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”

    Full study and all 29 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.