Word study
Stagger
6 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: stagger, staggered, staggers, staggering. 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 “stagger” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- נוּעַ nûaquiver, wave, waver, tremble, tottertranslated this way 5 times of its 38 uses · Strong’s H5128Verb · Translated: shake 5, sway 3, shakes 3, fugitive 2Full study and all 36 verses →
Psalm 107:27 They reeled and staggered like drunkards, and all their skill was useless.
Isaiah 24:20 The earth staggers like a drunkard and sways like a shack. Earth’s rebellion weighs it down, and it falls, never to rise again.
- תַּרְעֵלָה tarêlâhreelingtranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H8653Noun · Translated: staggered 1, makes men stagger 1, staggering 1Full study and all 3 verses →
Psalm 60:3 You have shown Your people hardship; we are staggered from the wine You made us drink.
Isaiah 51:17 Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of His fury; you who have drained the goblet to the dregs — the cup that makes men stagger.
- תָּעָה tââherrtranslated this way 2 times of its 49 uses · Strong’s H8582Verb · Translated: astray 5, go astray 4, wandered 3, stray 3Full study and all 45 verses →
Job 12:25 They grope in the darkness without light; He makes them stagger like drunkards.’’
Isaiah 19:14 The LORD has poured into her a spirit of confusion. Egypt has been led astray in all she does, as a drunkard staggers through his own vomit.
- כָּשַׁל kâshalstumble, stagger, tottertranslated this way 2 times of its 63 uses · Strong’s H3782Verb · Translated: stumble 23, stumbled 7, fall 5, stumbles 4Full study and all 59 verses →
Jeremiah 6:21 Therefore this is what the LORD says: “I will lay stumbling blocks before this people; fathers and sons alike will be staggered; friends and neighbors will perish.”
Lamentations 5:13 Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.
- שָׁגָה shâgâhgo astray, errtranslated this way 1 time of its 21 uses · Strong’s H7686Verb · Translated: stray 4, strays unintentionally 2, captivated 2, led astray 2Full study and all 19 verses →
Isaiah 28:7 These also stagger from wine and stumble from strong drink: Priests and prophets reel from strong drink and are befuddled by wine. They stumble because of strong drink, muddled in their visions and stumbling in their judgments.
- גָּעַשׁ gâashshake, quaketranslated this way 1 time of its 9 uses · Strong’s H1607Verb · Translated: shook 2, shaken 2, churn 2, convulse 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Jeremiah 25:16 And they will drink and stagger and go out of their minds, because of the sword that I will send among them.”
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.