Word study

Sickle

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חֶרְמֵשׁ chermêshsickletranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2770Noun  ·  Translated: first put the sickle 1, sickle 1

    Deuteronomy 16:9 You are to count off seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the standing grain.

    Deuteronomy 23:25 When you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you must not put a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.

    Full study and all 2 verses →
  • מַגָּל maggâlsickletranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H4038Noun  ·  Translated: sickle 2

    Jeremiah 50:16 Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time. In the face of the oppressor’s sword, each will turn to his own people, each will flee to his own land.

    Joel 3:13 Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full; the wine vats overflow because their wickedness is great.

    Full study and all 2 verses →
  • מַחֲרֵשָׁה machărêshâhploughsharetranslated this way 1 time of its 3 uses · Strong’s H4281Noun  ·  Translated: plowshares 1, sickles 1, for 1

    1 Samuel 13:20 Instead, all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles.

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • δρέπανον drépanona sickletranslated this way 8 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s G1407Noun  ·  Translated: sickle 8

    Mark 4:29 And as soon as the grain is ripe, he swings the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

    Revelation 14:14 And I looked and saw a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was One like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand.

    Full study and all 7 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 sickle: 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.