Word study

Serpent

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • נָחָשׁ nâchâshserpenttranslated this way 11 times of its 30 uses · Strong’s H5175Noun  ·  Translated: snake 12, serpent 11, snakes 5, like a snake 2

    Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”

    Job 26:13 By His breath the skies were cleared; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.

    Full study and all 28 verses →
  • תַּנִּין tannînserpent, dragon, sea-monstertranslated this way 6 times of its 28 uses · Strong’s H8577Noun  ·  Translated: jackals 11, serpent 5, dragon 2, like a monster 2

    Exodus 7:9 “When Pharaoh tells you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ you are to say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a serpent.”

    Deuteronomy 32:33 Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.

    Full study and all 28 verses →
  • שָׂרָף sârâpha serpenttranslated this way 3 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H8314Noun  ·  Translated: venomous 2, seraphim 2, serpent 2, fiery serpent 1

    Numbers 21:8 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.”

    Isaiah 14:29 Do not rejoice, all you Philistines, that the rod that struck you is broken. For a viper will spring from the root of the snake, and a flying serpent from its egg.

    Full study and all 7 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ὄφις óphisa serpenttranslated this way 5 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s G3789Noun  ·  Translated: snakes 6, serpent 4, snake 3, serpent's 1

    Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was hurled down — that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

    Revelation 12:14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle to fly from the presence of the serpent to her place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.

    Full study and all 14 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.

What the Bible says about serpent: passages by topic →

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.