Word study

Sell

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מָכַר mâkarselltranslated this way 36 times of its 79 uses · Strong’s H4376Verb  ·  Translated: sold 35, sell 21, sells 9, selling 6

    Genesis 25:31 “First sell me your birthright,” Jacob replied.

    Exodus 21:7 And if a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as the menservants do.

    Full study and all 74 verses →
  • נָתַן nâthangive, put, settranslated this way 5 times of its 1,957 uses · Strong’s H5414Verb  ·  Translated: give 326, gave 206, given 187, put 135

    Genesis 23:9 to sell me the cave of Machpelah that belongs to him; it is at the end of his field. Let him sell it to me in your presence for full price, so that I may have a burial site.”

    Leviticus 25:37 You must not lend him your silver at interest or sell him your food for profit.

    Full study and all 1,785 verses →
  • שָׁבַר shâbarbuy graintranslated this way 4 times of its 21 uses · Strong’s H7666Verb  ·  Translated: buy 11, sold grain 2, buy grain 2, sell 2

    Deuteronomy 2:28 You can sell us food to eat and water to drink in exchange for silver. Only let us pass through on foot,

    Proverbs 11:26 The people will curse the hoarder of grain, but blessing will crown the one who sells it.

    Full study and all 20 verses →
  • שֶׁקֶל sheqelshekeltranslated this way 2 times of its 86 uses · Strong’s H8255Noun  ·  Translated: shekels 47, shekel 37, sell for a shekel 2

    2 Kings 7:1 Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the LORD says: ‘About this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel.’”

    2 Kings 7:18 It happened just as the man of God had told the king: “About this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel.”

    Full study and all 54 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πωλέω pōléōI selltranslated this way 16 times of its 22 uses · Strong’s G4453Verb  ·  Translated: selling 8, sell 8, sold 6

    Matthew 19:21 Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”

    Mark 10:21 Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him, “There is one thing you lack: Go, sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”

    Full study and all 20 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.