Word study

Snake

1 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • נָחָשׁ nâchâshserpenttranslated this way 19 times of its 30 uses · Strong’s H5175Noun  ·  Translated: snake 12, serpent 11, snakes 5, like a snake 2

    Genesis 49:17 He will be a snake by the road, a viper in the path that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider tumbles backward.

    Exodus 4:3 “Throw it on the ground,” said the LORD. So Moses threw it on the ground, and it became a snake, and he ran from it.

    Full study and all 28 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ὄφις óphisa serpenttranslated this way 9 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s G3789Noun  ·  Translated: snakes 6, serpent 4, snake 3, serpent's 1

    Matthew 7:10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

    Mark 16:18 they will pick up snakes with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be made well.”

    Full study and all 14 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.