Word study

Sinner

2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חַטָּא chaṭṭâsinfultranslated this way 14 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H2400Adjective  ·  Translated: sinners 14, sinful 2, sinning 1, sinned 1

    Numbers 32:14 Now behold, you, a brood of sinners, have risen up in place of your fathers to further stoke the burning anger of the LORD against Israel.

    Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.

    Full study and all 19 verses →
  • חָטָא châṭâmisstranslated this way 7 times of its 233 uses · Strong’s H2398Verb  ·  Translated: sinned 73, sin 33, committed 26, sins 21

    Proverbs 11:31 If the righteous receive their due on earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner!

    Ecclesiastes 2:26 To the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating that which he will hand over to one who pleases God. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

    Full study and all 217 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἁμαρτωλός hamartōlóssinning, sinful, a sinnertranslated this way 38 times of its 46 uses · Strong’s G268Adjective  ·  Translated: sinners 29, sinner 9, sinful 8

    Matthew 9:10 Later, as Jesus was dining at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Him and His disciples.

    Mark 2:15 While Jesus was dining at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him and His disciples — for there were many who followed Him.

    Full study and all 45 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 sinner: 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.