Word study

Supervise

6 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: supervised, supervise, supervising. 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 “supervise” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • נָצַח nâtsachbe pre-eminent, enduringtranslated this way 3 times of its 63 uses · Strong’s H5329Verb  ·  Translated: choirmaster 56, supervisors 2, supervise 2, lead the music 1

    2 Chronicles 34:13 were over the laborers and supervised all who did the work, task by task. Some of the Levites were secretaries, officers, and gatekeepers.

    Ezra 3:8 In the second month of the second year after they had arrived at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, and the rest of their associates including the priests, the Levites, and all who had returned to Jerusalem from the captivity, began the work. They appointed Levites twenty years of age or older to supervise the construction of the house of the LORD.

    Full study and all 63 verses →
  • פָּקַד pâqadattend to, visit, muster, appointtranslated this way 2 times of its 294 uses · Strong’s H6485Verb  ·  Translated: punish 41, numbered 26, appointed 15, counted 14

    2 Kings 12:11 Then they would put the counted money into the hands of those who supervised the work on the house of the LORD, who in turn would pay those doing the work — the carpenters, builders,

    2 Chronicles 34:10 They put it into the hands of those supervising the work in the house of the LORD, who in turn gave it to the workmen restoring and repairing the house of the LORD.

    Full study and all 267 verses →
  • עָמַד âmadtake one's stand, standtranslated this way 1 time of its 508 uses · Strong’s H5975Verb  ·  Translated: stood 99, stand 95, standing 50, stands 12

    Numbers 7:2 And the leaders of Israel, the heads of their families, presented an offering. These men were the tribal leaders who had supervised the registration.

    Full study and all 485 verses →
  • רָדָה râdâhhave dominion, rule, dominatetranslated this way 1 time of its 26 uses · Strong’s H7287Verb  ·  Translated: rule 12, dominion 2, supervisors 2

    1 Kings 5:16 not including his 3,300 foremen who supervised the workers.

    Full study and all 25 verses →
  • עָשָׂה âsâhdo, maketranslated this way 1 time of its 2,478 uses · Strong’s H6213Verb  ·  Translated: done 292, made 265, make 143, did 112Full study and all 2,206 verses →
  • עַל alheighttranslated this way 1 time of its 4,859 uses · Strong’s H5921Preposition  ·  Translated: on 777, over 297, in 218, against 216Full study and all 3,996 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.