Word study

Stronger

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חָזַק châzaqbe or grow firm, strong, strengthentranslated this way 5 times of its 290 uses · Strong’s H2388Verb  ·  Translated: strong 37, made repairs 22, strengthened 16, repaired 15

    Joshua 17:13 However, when the Israelites grew stronger, they put the Canaanites to forced labor; but they failed to drive them out completely.

    Judges 1:28 When Israel became stronger, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor, but they never drove them out completely.

    Full study and all 264 verses →
  • עָצוּם âtsûmmighty, numeroustranslated this way 3 times of its 31 uses · Strong’s H6099Adjective  ·  Translated: mighty 6, powerful 5, strong 5, mightier 3

    Deuteronomy 7:1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations— the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—

    Deuteronomy 9:1 Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens.

    Full study and all 31 verses →
  • קָשַׁר qâsharbind, league together, conspiretranslated this way 2 times of its 44 uses · Strong’s H7194Verb  ·  Translated: conspired 18, Tie 4, tied 3, bind 3

    Genesis 30:41 Whenever the stronger females of the flock were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs, in full view of the animals, so that they would breed in front of the branches.

    Genesis 30:42 But if the animals were weak, he did not set out the branches. So the weaker animals went to Laban and the stronger ones to Jacob.

    Full study and all 44 verses →
  • הָלַךְ hâlakgo, come, walktranslated this way 2 times of its 1,461 uses · Strong’s H1980Verb  ·  Translated: go 338, went 173, walk 116, Come 84

    Judges 4:24 And the hand of the Israelites grew stronger and stronger against Jabin king of Canaan until they destroyed him.

    Full study and all 1,299 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἰσχυρός ischyrósstrong, mighty, powerfultranslated this way 3 times of its 29 uses · Strong’s G2478Adjective  ·  Translated: mighty 10, strong 6, more powerful 3, stronger 3

    Luke 11:22 But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted, and then he divides up his plunder.

    1 Corinthians 1:25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

    Full study and all 27 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.