Word study

Sky

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שָׁמַיִם shâmayimsky, alofttranslated this way 39 times of its 410 uses · Strong’s H8064Noun  ·  Translated: heaven 163, heavens 141, air 43, sky 32

    Genesis 1:8 God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning — the second day.

    Exodus 24:10 and they saw the God of Israel. Under His feet was a work like a pavement made of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself.

    Full study and all 392 verses →
  • שַׁחַק shachaqdust, cloudtranslated this way 7 times of its 19 uses · Strong’s H7834Noun  ·  Translated: clouds 11, skies 6, sky 1, speck of dust 1

    Job 37:18 can you, like Him, spread out the skies, as strong as a mirror of bronze?

    Psalm 68:34 Ascribe the power to God, whose majesty is over Israel, whose strength is in the skies.

    Full study and all 19 verses →
  • שָׁמַיִן shâmayinheavenstranslated this way 3 times of its 37 uses · Strong’s H8065Noun  ·  Translated: heaven 28, heavens 3, air 3, sky 3

    Daniel 4:11 The tree grew large and strong; its top reached the sky, and it was visible to the ends of the earth.

    Daniel 4:20 The tree you saw that grew large and strong, whose top reached the sky and was visible to all the earth,

    Full study and all 35 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • οὐρανός ouranósthe sky, the heaventranslated this way 15 times of its 272 uses · Strong’s G3772Noun  ·  Translated: heaven 227, heavens 18, sky 15, air 9

    Matthew 16:2 But He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘The weather will be fair, for the sky is red,’

    Mark 13:25 the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’

    Full study and all 255 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.