Word study

Stroke

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • פַּעַם paambeat, foot, anvil, occurrencetranslated this way 1 time of its 105 uses · Strong’s H6471Noun  ·  Translated: times 42, time 15, feet 9, twice 6

    1 Samuel 26:8 Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hand. Now, therefore, please let me thrust the spear through him into the ground with one stroke. I will not need to strike him twice!”

    Full study and all 102 verses →
  • יָד yâdhandtranslated this way 1 time of its 1,403 uses · Strong’s H3027Noun  ·  Translated: hand 664, hands 349, through 64, power 22Full study and all 1,290 verses →
  • מַעֲבָר maăbârford, pass, passingtranslated this way 1 time of its 11 uses · Strong’s H4569Noun  ·  Translated: fords 6, ford 2, pass 2, stroke 1

    Isaiah 30:32 And with every stroke of the rod of punishment that the LORD brings down on them, the tambourines and lyres will sound as He battles with weapons brandished.

    Full study and all 11 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • κεραία keraíaan apostrophetranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G2762Noun  ·  Translated: stroke of a pen 2

    Matthew 5:18 For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

    Luke 16:17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for a single stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.

    Full study and all 2 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.