Word study
Sheep
6 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “sheep”. 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 “sheep” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- צֹאן tsônsmall cattle, sheep and goats, flock, flockstranslated this way 99 times of its 259 uses · Strong’s H6629Noun · Translated: sheep 89, flock 76, flocks 63, like sheep 8Full study and all 238 verses →
Genesis 4:2 Later she gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, while Cain was a tiller of the soil.
Exodus 20:24 You are to make for Me an altar of earth, and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep and goats and cattle. In every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.
- שֶׂה sehone of a flock, a sheep (or goat)translated this way 26 times of its 44 uses · Strong’s H7716Noun · Translated: sheep 25, lamb 12, another 2Full study and all 38 verses →
Genesis 30:32 Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb, and every spotted or speckled goat. These will be my wages.
Exodus 22:1 “If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters or sells it, he must repay five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.
- כֶּשֶׂב keseblambtranslated this way 6 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s H3775Noun · Translated: sheep 6, lamb 5, lambs 1, young 1Full study and all 13 verses →
Leviticus 1:10 If, however, one’s offering is a burnt offering from the flock — from the sheep or goats — he is to present an unblemished male.
Numbers 18:17 But you must not redeem the firstborn of an ox, a sheep, or a goat; they are holy. You are to splatter their blood on the altar and burn their fat as a food offering, a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
- רָחֵל râchêlewetranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H7353Noun · Translated: sheep 3, ewes 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Genesis 31:38 I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten the rams of your flock.
Song of Solomon 6:6 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing; each has its twin, and not one of them is lost.
- עֵדֶר êderflock, herdtranslated this way 2 times of its 36 uses · Strong’s H5739Noun · Translated: flocks 13, flock 8, like a flock 6, herds 6Full study and all 33 verses →
Genesis 29:2 He looked and saw a well in the field, and near it lay three flocks of sheep, because the sheep were watered from this well. And a large stone covered the mouth of the well.
Ezekiel 34:12 As a shepherd looks for his scattered sheep when he is among the flock, so I will look for My flock. I will rescue them from all the places to which they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.
- כֶּבֶשׂ kebeslambtranslated this way 2 times of its 99 uses · Strong’s H3532Noun · Translated: male lambs 35, lambs 26, lamb 20, male lamb 15Full study and all 99 verses →
Exodus 12:5 Your lamb must be an unblemished year-old male, and you may take it from the sheep or the goats.
Job 31:20 if his heart has not blessed me for warming him with the fleece of my sheep,
Greek words (New Testament)
- πρόβατον próbatona sheeptranslated this way 38 times of its 39 uses · Strong’s G4263Noun · Translated: sheep 37, sheep's 1, sheepfold 1Full study and all 37 verses →
Matthew 9:36 When He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Mark 6:34 When Jesus stepped ashore and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things.
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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 sheep: 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.