Word study
Skin
7 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: skin, skins, skinned. 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 “skin” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- עוֹר ôrskintranslated this way 57 times of its 81 uses · Strong’s H5785Noun · Translated: skin 48, leather 13, skins 7, hide 7Full study and all 72 verses →
Genesis 3:21 And the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.
Exodus 25:5 ram skins dyed red and fine leather; acacia wood;
- צָרַעַת tsâraathleprosytranslated this way 11 times of its 35 uses · Strong’s H6883Noun · Translated: skin disease 8, mildew 7, leprosy 4, disease 3Full study and all 32 verses →
Leviticus 13:3 The priest is to examine the infection on his skin, and if the hair in the infection has turned white and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin, it is a skin disease. After the priest examines him, he must pronounce him unclean.
Deuteronomy 24:8 In cases of infectious skin diseases, be careful to diligently follow everything the Levitical priests instruct you. Be careful to do as I have commanded them.
- צָרַע tsârabe struck with leprosy, leproustranslated this way 4 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H6879Verb · Translated: leprous 5, skin disease 3, leper 3, leprosy 3Full study and all 17 verses →
Leviticus 14:2 “This is the law for the one afflicted with a skin disease on the day of his cleansing, when he is brought to the priest.
Numbers 5:2 “Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone with a skin disease, anyone who has a bodily discharge, and anyone who is defiled by a dead body.
- נֶבֶל nebelskin-bottle, skintranslated this way 4 times of its 36 uses · Strong’s H5035Noun · Translated: harps 13, harp 8, skin 3, play the harps 2Full study and all 35 verses →
1 Samuel 1:24 Once she had weaned him, Hannah took the boy with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. Though the boy was still young, she brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh.
2 Samuel 16:1 When David had gone a little beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth was there to meet him. He had a pair of saddled donkeys loaded with two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred clusters of raisins, a hundred summer fruits, and a skin of wine.
- חֵמֶת chêmethwaterskintranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H2573Noun · Translated: skin of water 1, skin 1, skin with water 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Genesis 21:14 Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.
Genesis 21:15 When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.
- בָּשָׂר bâsârfleshtranslated this way 3 times of its 231 uses · Strong’s H1320Noun · Translated: flesh 91, meat 59, body 22, himself 8Full study and all 212 verses →
Exodus 4:7 “Put your hand back inside your cloak,” said the LORD. So Moses put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his skin.
2 Kings 6:30 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. And as he passed by on the wall, the people saw the sackcloth under his clothes next to his skin.
- פָּשַׁט pâshaṭstrip off, make a dash, raidtranslated this way 3 times of its 44 uses · Strong’s H6584Verb · Translated: raided 9, strip 8, stripped 4, take 3Full study and all 42 verses →
Leviticus 1:6 Next, he is to skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces.
2 Chronicles 29:34 However, since there were not enough priests to skin all the burnt offerings, their Levite brothers helped them until the work was finished and until the priests had consecrated themselves. For the Levites had been more diligent in consecrating themselves than the priests had been.
Greek words (New Testament)
- ἀσκός askósa wine-skintranslated this way 3 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s G779Noun · Translated: wineskins 9, skins 3Full study and all 4 verses →
Matthew 9:17 Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Mark 2:22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.”
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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 skin: 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.