Word study

Smoke

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עָשָׁן âshânsmoketranslated this way 24 times of its 25 uses · Strong’s H6227Noun  ·  Translated: smoke 17, like smoke 4, smoking 1, like the smoke 1

    Genesis 15:17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses.

    Exodus 19:18 Mount Sinai was completely enveloped in smoke, because the LORD had descended on it in fire. And the smoke rose like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently.

    Full study and all 24 verses →
  • קִיטוֹר qîṭôrthick smoketranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H7008Noun  ·  Translated: smoke 1, like smoke 1, dried up by smoke 1, clouds 1

    Genesis 19:28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, and he saw the smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace.

    Psalm 119:83 Though I am like a wineskin dried up by smoke, I do not forget Your statutes.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • עָשַׁן âshansmoke, be wrothtranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H6225Verb  ·  Translated: smolder 2, enveloped in smoke 1, burn 1, anger smolder 1

    Exodus 19:18 Mount Sinai was completely enveloped in smoke, because the LORD had descended on it in fire. And the smoke rose like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently.

    Psalm 144:5 Part Your heavens, O LORD, and come down; touch the mountains, that they may smoke.

    Full study and all 6 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • καπνός kapnóssmoketranslated this way 13 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s G2586Noun  ·  Translated: smoke 13

    Acts 2:19 I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

    Revelation 8:4 And the smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, rose up before God from the hand of the angel.

    Full study and all 11 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 smoke: 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.