Word study

Ship

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • אֳנִיָּה ŏnîâha shiptranslated this way 26 times of its 28 uses · Strong’s H591Noun  ·  Translated: ships 21, ship 4, sailors 1, boats 1

    Genesis 49:13 Zebulun shall dwell by the seashore and become a harbor for ships; his border shall extend to Sidon.

    Deuteronomy 28:68 The LORD will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

    Full study and all 27 verses →
  • צִי tsîshiptranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H6716Noun  ·  Translated: Ships 3, vessel 1

    Numbers 24:24 Ships will come from the coasts of Cyprus; they will subdue Asshur and Eber, but they too will perish forever.”

    Ezekiel 30:9 On that day messengers will go out from Me in ships to frighten Cush out of complacency. Anguish will come upon them on the day of Egypt’s doom. For it is indeed coming.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • אֳנִי ŏnîships, fleettranslated this way 3 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H590Noun  ·  Translated: fleet 3, ships 2, fleet of ships 1, galley 1

    1 Kings 9:26 King Solomon also assembled a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.

    1 Kings 10:22 For the king had the ships of Tarshish at sea with Hiram’s fleet, and once every three years the ships of Tarshish would arrive bearing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.

    Full study and all 5 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πλοῖον ploîona ship, vesseltranslated this way 21 times of its 64 uses · Strong’s G4143Noun  ·  Translated: boat 39, ship 17, boats 4, ships 3

    Acts 20:13 We went on ahead to the ship and sailed to Assos, where we were to take Paul aboard. He had arranged this because he was going there on foot.

    James 3:4 Consider ships as well. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot is inclined.

    Full study and all 60 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 ship: 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.