Word study

Straight

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • יָשַׁר yâsharbe smooth, straight, righttranslated this way 5 times of its 25 uses · Strong’s H3474Verb  ·  Translated: pleased 4, make 3, please 2, pleasing 2

    1 Samuel 6:12 And the cows headed straight up the road toward Beth-shemesh, staying on that one highway and lowing as they went, never straying to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed behind them to the border of Beth-shemesh.

    Psalm 5:8 Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness because of my enemies; make straight Your way before me.

    Full study and all 25 verses →
  • נֶגֶד negedwhat is conspicuous or in fronttranslated this way 4 times of its 142 uses · Strong’s H5048Preposition  ·  Translated: before 24, before me 11, opposite 11, presence 9

    Joshua 6:5 And when there is a long blast of the ram’s horn and you hear its sound, have all the people give a mighty shout. Then the wall of the city will collapse and all your people will charge straight into the city.”

    Jeremiah 31:39 The measuring line will once again stretch out straight to the hill of Gareb and then turn toward Goah.

    Full study and all 135 verses →
  • יָשָׁר yâshârstraight, righttranslated this way 2 times of its 119 uses · Strong’s H3477Adjective  ·  Translated: upright 54, right 41, seems right 4, Jashar 2

    Psalm 107:7 He led them on a straight path to reach a city where they could live.

    Ezekiel 1:7 Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the hooves of a calf, gleaming like polished bronze.

    Full study and all 119 verses →
  • יֹשֶׁר yôsherstraightness, uprightnesstranslated this way 2 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H3476Noun  ·  Translated: uprightness 4, upright 3, right 2, straight 2

    Proverbs 2:13 from those who leave the straight paths to walk in the ways of darkness,

    Proverbs 4:11 I will guide you in the way of wisdom; I will lead you on straight paths.

    Full study and all 14 verses →
  • אֵל êlmotion totranslated this way 2 times of its 4,199 uses · Strong’s H413Preposition  ·  Translated: to 1,941, to me 285, to you 149, to him 137Full study and all 3,455 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • εὐθύς euthýsstraight, immediatelytranslated this way 7 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s G2117Adjective  ·  Translated: straight 7, right 1

    Matthew 3:3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.’”

    Mark 1:3 “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.’”

    Full study and all 8 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.

What the Bible says about straight: passages by topic →

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.