Word study

Seashore

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “seashore”. 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 “seashore” 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)

  • שָׂפָה sâphâhlip, speech, edgetranslated this way 5 times of its 167 uses · Strong’s H8193Noun  ·  Translated: lips 98, speech 12, rim 10, edge 9

    Genesis 22:17 I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.

    Joshua 11:4 So these kings came out with all their armies, a multitude as numerous as the sand on the seashore, along with a great number of horses and chariots.

    Full study and all 159 verses →
  • יָם yâmseatranslated this way 3 times of its 378 uses · Strong’s H3220Noun  ·  Translated: sea 254, west 51, seas 20, west side 7

    2 Samuel 17:11 Instead, I advise that all Israel from Dan to Beersheba— a multitude like the sand on the seashore— be gathered to you, and that you yourself lead them into battle.

    1 Kings 4:20 The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore, and they were eating and drinking and rejoicing.

    Full study and all 327 verses →
  • חוֹף chôphshore, coasttranslated this way 1 time of its 6 uses · Strong’s H2348Noun  ·  Translated: seashore 1, become a harbor 1, along the coast 1, coast 1

    Genesis 49:13 Zebulun shall dwell by the seashore and become a harbor for ships; his border shall extend to Sidon.

    Full study and all 5 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • χεῖλος cheîlosa lip, mouth, shoretranslated this way 1 time of its 7 uses · Strong’s G5491Noun  ·  Translated: lips 6, seashore 1

    Hebrews 11:12 And so from one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • θάλασσα thálassathe sea, laketranslated this way 1 time of its 85 uses · Strong’s G2281Noun  ·  Translated: sea 80, of 4, seashore 1

    Revelation 20:8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth — Gog and Magog — to assemble them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the seashore.

    Full study and all 81 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.