Word study

Sun

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שֶׁמֶשׁ shemeshsuntranslated this way 95 times of its 108 uses · Strong’s H8121Noun  ·  Translated: sun 88, time the sun 3, sunset 3, broad daylight 2

    Genesis 15:12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and suddenly great terror and darkness overwhelmed him.

    Exodus 16:21 Every morning each one gathered as much as was needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away.

    Full study and all 101 verses →
  • חַמָּה chammâhheat, suntranslated this way 4 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H2535Noun  ·  Translated: sun 4, warmth 1

    Job 30:28 I go about blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

    Song of Solomon 6:10 Who is this who shines like the dawn, as fair as the moon, as bright as the sun, as majestic as the stars in procession?

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • מִזְרָח mizrâchplace of sunrise, easttranslated this way 4 times of its 70 uses · Strong’s H4217Noun  ·  Translated: east 46, eastward 6, toward the sunrise 5, east side 4

    Psalm 50:1 A Psalm of Asaph. The Mighty One, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from where the sun rises to where it sets.

    Isaiah 45:6 so that all may know, from where the sun rises to where it sets, that there is none but Me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.

    Full study and all 67 verses →
  • אוֹר ôrlighttranslated this way 3 times of its 119 uses · Strong’s H216Noun  ·  Translated: light 86, lightning 5, dawn 3, daylight 3

    Job 31:26 if I have beheld the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor,

    Isaiah 30:26 The light of the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter— like the light of seven days— on the day that the LORD binds up the brokenness of His people and heals the wounds He has inflicted.

    Full study and all 108 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἥλιος hḗliosthe sun, sunlighttranslated this way 26 times of its 29 uses · Strong’s G2246Noun  ·  Translated: sun 25, sunset 1, sunrise 1, light of the sun 1

    Matthew 5:45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

    Mark 4:6 But when the sun rose, the seedlings were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.

    Full study and all 29 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 sun: 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.