Word study

Shut

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • סָגַר sâgarshut, closetranslated this way 28 times of its 90 uses · Strong’s H5462Verb  ·  Translated: shut 23, closed 9, isolate 8, delivered 8

    Genesis 7:16 And they entered, the male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.

    Joshua 2:7 So the king’s men set out in pursuit of the spies along the road to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as they had gone out, the gate was shut.

    Full study and all 87 verses →
  • קָפַץ qâphatsdraw together, shuttranslated this way 5 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H7092Verb  ·  Translated: shut 3, shuts 2, gathered 1, bounding 1

    Deuteronomy 15:7 If there is a poor man among your brothers within any of the gates in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, then you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother.

    Job 5:16 So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • עָצָר âtsârrestrain, retaintranslated this way 4 times of its 44 uses · Strong’s H6113Verb  ·  Translated: halted 6, slave 5, shut 4, confined 3

    Deuteronomy 11:17 or the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you. He will shut the heavens so that there will be no rain, nor will the land yield its produce, and you will soon perish from the good land that the LORD is giving you.

    1 Kings 8:35 When the skies are shut and there is no rain because Your people have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and they turn from their sins because You have afflicted them,

    Full study and all 44 verses →
  • עָצַם âtsambe vast, mighty, numeroustranslated this way 2 times of its 18 uses · Strong’s H6105Verb  ·  Translated: numerous 5, more 2, more numerous 2

    Isaiah 29:10 For the LORD has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep. He has shut your eyes, O prophets; He has covered your heads, O seers.

    Isaiah 33:15 He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, who refuses gain from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears against murderous plots and shuts his eyes tightly against evil—

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • סָתַם sâthamstop up, shut up, keep closetranslated this way 2 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H5640Verb  ·  Translated: stopped 4, closed 2

    Lamentations 3:8 Even when I cry out and plead for help, He shuts out my prayer.

    Daniel 12:4 But you, Daniel, shut up these words and seal the book until the time of the end. Many will roam to and fro, and knowledge will increase.”

    Full study and all 14 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • κλείω kleíōI shut, shut uptranslated this way 12 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s G2808Verb  ·  Translated: shut 10, locked 3, withholds 1, shuts 1

    Matthew 6:6 But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

    Luke 4:25 But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all the land.

    Full study and all 15 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.