Word study

Shine

5 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: shine, shining, shines. 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 “shine” 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)

  • אוֹר ôrbe or become lighttranslated this way 14 times of its 40 uses · Strong’s H215Verb  ·  Translated: shine 12, light 6, lit 2, gives light 2

    Genesis 1:15 And let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.” And it was so.

    Numbers 6:25 may the LORD cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

    Full study and all 40 verses →
  • יָפַע yâphashine out or forth, send out beams, cause to shinetranslated this way 4 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H3313Verb  ·  Translated: shine forth 2

    Job 3:4 If only that day had turned to darkness! May God above disregard it; may no light shine upon it.

    Psalm 50:2 From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth.

    Full study and all 8 verses →
  • יָצָא yâtsâgo or come outtranslated this way 2 times of its 1,035 uses · Strong’s H3318Verb  ·  Translated: brought 108, went 103, go 82, came 78

    Judges 5:31 So may all Your enemies perish, O LORD! But may those who love You shine like the sun at its brightest.” And the land had rest for forty years.

    Full study and all 975 verses →
  • זָרַח zârachrise, come forthtranslated this way 2 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s H2224Verb  ·  Translated: rises 5, rise 2

    2 Kings 3:22 When they got up early in the morning, the sun was shining on the water, and it looked as red as blood to the Moabites across the way.

    Job 9:7 He commands the sun not to shine; He seals off the stars.

    Full study and all 16 verses →
  • בָּרָק bârâqlightningtranslated this way 2 times of its 21 uses · Strong’s H1300Noun  ·  Translated: lightning 10, flash like lightning 3, like lightning 2, shining 2

    Nahum 3:3 Charging horseman, flashing sword, shining spear; heaps of slain, mounds of corpses, dead bodies without end— they stumble over their dead—

    Habakkuk 3:11 Sun and moon stood still in their places at the flash of Your flying arrows, at the brightness of Your shining spear.

    Full study and all 21 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • φαίνω phaínōI shine, appear, seemtranslated this way 7 times of its 31 uses · Strong’s G5316Verb  ·  Translated: appeared 7, appear 3, shining 3, seen 2

    John 1:5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

    Philippians 2:15 so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world

    Full study and all 31 verses →
  • λάμπω lámpōI shinetranslated this way 3 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s G2989Verb  ·  Translated: shine 2, shone 2, gives light 1, lights 1

    Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

    2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

    Full study and all 6 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.