Word study

Slavery

2 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עֶבֶד ebedslave, servanttranslated this way 15 times of its 793 uses · Strong’s H5650Noun  ·  Translated: servant 327, servants 282, officials 31, slaves 24

    Exodus 13:3 So Moses told the people, “Remember this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; for the LORD brought you out of it by the strength of His hand. And nothing leavened shall be eaten.

    Deuteronomy 5:6 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

    Full study and all 712 verses →
  • עֲבֹדָה ăbôdâhlabour, servicetranslated this way 2 times of its 127 uses · Strong’s H5656Noun  ·  Translated: service 56, work 25, labor 8, task 5

    Exodus 2:23 After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.

    Lamentations 1:3 Judah has gone into exile under affliction and harsh slavery; she dwells among the nations but finds no place to rest. All her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

    Full study and all 112 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • δουλεία douleíaslavery, bondagetranslated this way 4 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s G1397Noun  ·  Translated: slavery 4, bondage 1

    Romans 8:15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption to sonship, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

    Galatians 4:24 These things serve as illustrations, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery: This is Hagar.

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • δοῦλος doûlosa male slavetranslated this way 3 times of its 125 uses · Strong’s G1401Noun  ·  Translated: servant 55, servants 36, slave 18, slaves 10

    Romans 6:19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to escalating wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

    1 Timothy 6:1 All who are under the yoke of slavery should regard their masters as fully worthy of honor, so that God’s name and our teaching will not be discredited.

    Full study and all 117 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 slavery: 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.