Word study

Solemn

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עֲצָרָה ătsârâhassemblytranslated this way 8 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s H6116Noun  ·  Translated: solemn assembly 6, hold a solemn assembly 1, held an assembly 1, crowd 1

    Leviticus 23:36 For seven days you are to present a food offering to the LORD. On the eighth day you are to hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the LORD. It is a solemn assembly; you must not do any regular work.

    Numbers 29:35 On the eighth day you are to hold a solemn assembly; you must not do any regular work.

    Full study and all 11 verses →
  • שָׁבַע shâbasweartranslated this way 3 times of its 185 uses · Strong’s H7650Verb  ·  Translated: swore 43, sworn 32, swear 28, swore an oath 12

    Exodus 13:19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear a solemn oath when he said, “God will surely attend to you, and then you must carry my bones with you from this place.”

    Joshua 6:26 At that time Joshua invoked this solemn oath: “Cursed before the LORD is the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho; at the cost of his firstborn he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates.”

    Full study and all 175 verses →
  • נֶדֶר nedervowtranslated this way 1 time of its 59 uses · Strong’s H5088Noun  ·  Translated: vow 26, vows 24, vow offerings 3, offerings 2

    Genesis 31:13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and made a solemn vow to Me. Now get up, leave this land at once, and return to your native land.’”

    Full study and all 56 verses →
  • כָּבֵד kâbêdheavytranslated this way 1 time of its 40 uses · Strong’s H3515Adjective  ·  Translated: heavy 7, severe 6, large 4, great 4

    Genesis 50:11 When the Canaanites of the land saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a solemn ceremony of mourning by the Egyptians.” Thus the place across the Jordan is called Abel-mizraim.

    Full study and all 39 verses →
  • גָּדוֹל gâdôlgreattranslated this way 1 time of its 501 uses · Strong’s H1419Adjective  ·  Translated: great 262, large 33, high 20, loud 14

    Judges 21:5 The Israelites asked, “Who among all the tribes of Israel did not come to the assembly before the LORD?” For they had taken a solemn oath that anyone who failed to come up before the LORD at Mizpah would surely be put to death.

    Full study and all 477 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀνάθεμα anáthemaa curse, a cursed thingtranslated this way 1 time of its 6 uses · Strong’s G331Noun  ·  Translated: curse 3, cursed 2, solemn oath 1

    Acts 23:14 They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have bound ourselves with a solemn oath not to eat anything until we have killed Paul.

    Full study and all 6 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.