Word study
Stomach
5 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: stomach, stomachs. 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 “stomach” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- מֵעֶה mêehinternal organs, inward parts (intestines, bowels), bellytranslated this way 4 times of its 30 uses · Strong’s H4578Noun · Translated: body 4, within 4, heart 4, stomach 3Full study and all 28 verses →
Numbers 5:22 May this water that brings a curse enter your stomach and cause your belly to swell and your thigh to shrivel.’ Then the woman is to say, ‘Amen, Amen.’
Job 20:14 yet in his stomach his food sours into the venom of cobras within him.
- חֹמֶשׁ chômeshbellytranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H2570Noun · Translated: stomach 4Full study and all 4 verses →
2 Samuel 2:23 But Asahel refused to turn away. So Abner thrust the butt of his spear into his stomach, and it came out his back, and he fell dead on the spot. And every man paused when he came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died.
2 Samuel 3:27 When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside into the gateway, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died on account of the blood of Joab’s brother Asahel.
- בֶּטֶן beṭenbelly, body, wombtranslated this way 3 times of its 64 uses · Strong’s H990Noun · Translated: womb 36, belly 8, stomach 3, within 3Full study and all 64 verses →
Job 20:15 He swallows wealth but vomits it out; God will force it from his stomach.
Proverbs 13:25 A righteous man eats to his heart’s content, but the stomach of the wicked is empty.
- קֵבָה qêbâhstomach, bellytranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H6896Noun · Translated: stomach 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Deuteronomy 18:3 This shall be the priests’ share from the people who offer a sacrifice, whether a bull or a sheep: the priests are to be given the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach.
- חָלָץ châlâtsloinstranslated this way 1 time of its 7 uses · Strong’s H2504Noun · Translated: yourself 2, from you 1, heart 1, around his waist 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Jeremiah 30:6 Ask now, and see: Can a male give birth? Why then do I see every man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor and every face turned pale?
Greek words (New Testament)
- κοιλία koilíabelly, womb, the inner mantranslated this way 6 times of its 20 uses · Strong’s G2836Noun · Translated: womb 7, stomach 6, belly 3, birth 2Full study and all 19 verses →
Matthew 15:17 “Do you not yet realize that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then is eliminated?
Mark 7:19 because it does not enter his heart, but it goes into the stomach and then is eliminated.” (Thus all foods are clean.)
- στόμαχος stómachosthe stomachtranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G4751Noun · Translated: stomach 1Full study and its 1 verse →
1 Timothy 5:23 Stop drinking only water and use a little wine instead, because of your stomach and your frequent ailments.
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.