Word study

Spill

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שָׁחַת shâchathgo to ruin (?)translated this way 1 time of its 145 uses · Strong’s H7843Verb  ·  Translated: destroy 58, destroyed 13, corrupt 7, corrupted 5

    Genesis 38:9 But Onan knew that the offspring would not belong to him; so whenever he would sleep with his brother’s wife, he would spill his seed on the ground so that he would not produce offspring for his brother.

    Full study and all 135 verses →
  • מֵעֶה mêehinternal organs, inward parts (intestines, bowels), bellytranslated this way 1 time of its 30 uses · Strong’s H4578Noun  ·  Translated: body 4, within 4, heart 4, stomach 3

    2 Samuel 20:10 Amasa was not on guard against the dagger in Joab’s hand, and Joab stabbed him in the stomach and spilled out his intestines on the ground. And Joab did not need to strike him again, for Amasa was dead. Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bichri.

    Full study and all 28 verses →
  • שָׁפַךְ shâphakpour out, pourtranslated this way 1 time of its 112 uses · Strong’s H8210Verb  ·  Translated: pour 35, shed 26, poured 19, build 6

    Job 16:13 His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.

    Full study and all 108 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἐκχέω ekchéōI pour out, shedtranslated this way 4 times of its 27 uses · Strong’s G1632Verb  ·  Translated: poured 15, shed 4, pour 3, spill 2

    Matthew 9:17 Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

    Luke 5:37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined.

    Full study and all 27 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.