Word study
Stick
5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: stick, sticks. 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 “stick” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- עֵץ êtstree, trees, woodtranslated this way 13 times of its 307 uses · Strong’s H6086Noun · Translated: wood 103, trees 66, tree 58, timber 12Full study and all 277 verses →
1 Kings 17:10 So Elijah got up and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the city gate, there was a widow gathering sticks. Elijah called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, so that I may drink.”
2 Kings 6:6 “Where did it fall?” asked the man of God. And when he showed him the place, the man of God cut a stick, threw it there, and made the iron float.
- דָּבַק dâbaqcling, cleave, keep closetranslated this way 3 times of its 54 uses · Strong’s H1692Verb · Translated: cling 12, hold fast 6, overtook 4, clung 3Full study and all 52 verses →
Job 38:38 when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods of earth stick together?
Psalm 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death.
- מַקֵּל maqqêlrod, stafftranslated this way 1 time of its 18 uses · Strong’s H4731Noun · Translated: staff 7, branches 5Full study and all 16 verses →
1 Samuel 17:43 “Am I a dog,” he said to David, “that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
- מַטֶּה maṭṭehstaff, rod, shafttranslated this way 1 time of its 219 uses · Strong’s H4294Noun · Translated: tribe 123, staff 41, tribes 21, staffs 5Full study and all 200 verses →
Isaiah 28:27 Surely caraway is not threshed with a sledge, and the wheel of a cart is not rolled over the cumin. But caraway is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod.
- אָרַךְ ârakbe longtranslated this way 1 time of its 33 uses · Strong’s H748Verb · Translated: prolong 6, live long 5, long 3, lingered 2Full study and all 33 verses →
Isaiah 57:4 Whom are you mocking? At whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, offspring of deceit,
Greek words (New Testament)
- φρύγανον phrýganona dry stick for burningtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G5434Noun · Translated: sticks 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Acts 28:3 Paul gathered a bundle of sticks, and as he laid them on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself to his hand.
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.