Word study

Shed

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שָׁפַךְ shâphakpour out, pourtranslated this way 32 times of its 112 uses · Strong’s H8210Verb  ·  Translated: pour 35, shed 26, poured 19, build 6

    Genesis 9:6 Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed; for in His own image God has made mankind.

    Leviticus 17:4 instead of bringing it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to the LORD before His tabernacle— that man shall incur bloodguilt. He has shed blood and must be cut off from among his people.

    Full study and all 108 verses →
  • דָּם dâmbloodtranslated this way 4 times of its 347 uses · Strong’s H1818Noun  ·  Translated: blood 267, bloodshed 35, bloodguilt 5, blood still 4

    2 Chronicles 24:25 And when the Arameans had withdrawn, they left Joash severely wounded. His own servants conspired against him for shedding the blood of the son of Jehoiada the priest, and they killed him on his bed. So he died and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

    Ezekiel 22:13 Now look, I strike My hands together against your unjust gain and against the blood you have shed in your midst.

    Full study and all 292 verses →
  • נָקִי nâqîclean, free from, exempttranslated this way 3 times of its 43 uses · Strong’s H5355Adjective  ·  Translated: innocent 28, released 2, free 2, guilt of shedding innocent 2

    Deuteronomy 19:13 You must show him no pity. You are to purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, that it may go well with you.

    Deuteronomy 21:8 Accept this atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, and do not hold the shedding of innocent blood against them.” And the bloodshed will be atoned for.

    Full study and all 42 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἐκχέω ekchéōI pour out, shedtranslated this way 4 times of its 27 uses · Strong’s G1632Verb  ·  Translated: poured 15, shed 4, pour 3, spill 2

    Matthew 23:35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

    Luke 11:50 As a result, this generation will be charged with the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the foundation of the world,

    Full study and all 27 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.