Word study
Sulfur
1 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “sulfur”. 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 “sulfur” or one of its forms.
Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- גׇּפְרִית gophrîthbrimstonetranslated this way 7 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H1614Noun · Translated: sulfur 5, burning sulfur 2Full study and all 7 verses →
Genesis 19:24 Then the LORD rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah — from the LORD out of the heavens.
Deuteronomy 29:23 All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger.
Greek words (New Testament)
- θεῖον theîonbrimstone, sulfurtranslated this way 7 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s G2303Noun · Translated: sulfur 7Full study and all 7 verses →
Luke 17:29 But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
Revelation 9:17 Now the horses and riders in my vision looked like this: The riders had breastplates the colors of fire, sapphire, and sulfur. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths proceeded fire, smoke, and sulfur.
- θειώδης theiṓdēsof brimstone, sulfuroustranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G2306Adjective · Translated: sulfur 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Revelation 9:17 Now the horses and riders in my vision looked like this: The riders had breastplates the colors of fire, sapphire, and sulfur. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths proceeded fire, smoke, and sulfur.
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.