Word study

Shower

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רָבִיב râbîbrain, accumulationtranslated this way 6 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H7241Noun  ·  Translated: like showers 2, showers 2, like spring showers 1, Therefore the showers 1

    Deuteronomy 32:2 Let my teaching fall like rain and my speech settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass, like showers on tender plants.

    Psalm 65:10 You soak its furrows and level its ridges; You soften it with showers and bless its growth.

    Full study and all 6 verses →
  • גֶּשֶׁם geshemrain, showertranslated this way 4 times of its 35 uses · Strong’s H1653Noun  ·  Translated: rain 23, showers 4, rains 2, rainy 2

    Ezekiel 34:26 I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing. I will send down showers in season— showers of blessing.

    Joel 2:23 Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for He has given you the autumn rains for your vindication. He sends you showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

    Full study and all 33 verses →
  • מַלְקוֹשׁ malqôshlatter-rain, spring-raintranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H4456Noun  ·  Translated: spring 2, spring rains 2, like spring showers 1, like the spring showers 1

    Job 29:23 They waited for me as for rain and drank in my words like spring showers.

    Hosea 6:3 So let us know — let us press on to know the LORD. As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the earth.

    Full study and all 6 verses →
  • רָעַף râaphtrickle, driptranslated this way 1 time of its 5 uses · Strong’s H7491Verb  ·  Translated: overflow 2, shower 1, dripped 1, Drip 1

    Job 36:28 which the clouds pour out and shower abundantly on mankind.

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • שָׁלַח shâlachsendtranslated this way 1 time of its 829 uses · Strong’s H7971Verb  ·  Translated: sent 334, send 126, go 43, sending 19Full study and all 783 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ὄμβρος ómbrosa violent raintranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G3655Noun  ·  Translated: shower 1

    Luke 12:54 Then Jesus said to the crowds, “As soon as you see a cloud rising in the west, you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and that is what happens.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
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.