Word study

Sick

1 Hebrew and 5 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “sick”. 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 “sick” or one of its forms.

Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חָלָה châlâhbe weak, sicktranslated this way 9 times of its 75 uses · Strong’s H2470Verb  ·  Translated: ill 8, sick 8, grievous 5, sought 4

    2 Samuel 13:2 Amnon was sick with frustration over his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed implausible for him to do anything to her.

    2 Kings 8:7 Then Elisha came to Damascus while Ben-hadad king of Aram was sick, and the king was told, “The man of God has come here.”

    Full study and all 73 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀσθενέω asthenéōI am weak, sicktranslated this way 16 times of its 33 uses · Strong’s G770Verb  ·  Translated: sick 14, weak 12, ill 2

    Matthew 10:8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

    Mark 6:56 And wherever He went — villages and towns and countrysides — they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged Him just to let them touch the fringe of His cloak. And all who touched Him were healed.

    Full study and all 32 verses →
  • κακῶς kakōsbadly, evillytranslated this way 8 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s G2560Adverb  ·  Translated: sick 8, ill 2

    Matthew 8:16 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to Jesus, and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.

    Mark 1:32 That evening, after sunset, people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed,

    Full study and all 16 verses →
  • ἀσθενής asthenḗsweak, infirm, sicktranslated this way 6 times of its 26 uses · Strong’s G772Adjective  ·  Translated: weak 13, sick 6

    Matthew 25:43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, I was naked and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after Me.’

    Luke 9:2 And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

    Full study and all 24 verses →
  • ἄῤῥωστος árrhōstosinfirm, sick, illtranslated this way 5 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s G732Adjective  ·  Translated: sick 5

    Matthew 14:14 When He stepped ashore and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them and healed their sick.

    Mark 6:5 So He could not perform any miracles there, except to lay His hands on a few of the sick and heal them.

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • κατάκειμαι katákeimaiI recline, am lying illtranslated this way 2 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s G2621Verb  ·  Translated: sick in bed 2, dining 2, lying 2, eating 2

    Mark 1:30 Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever, and they promptly told Jesus about her.

    Acts 28:8 The father of Publius was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him, and after praying and placing his hands on him, he healed the man.

    Full study and all 11 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.