Word study
Survive
6 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: survive, survived, surviving, survives. 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 “survive” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- שָׁאַר shâarremain, be left overtranslated this way 13 times of its 126 uses · Strong’s H7604Verb · Translated: left 24, remained 19, remain 15, survive 8Full study and all 118 verses →
Exodus 14:28 The waters flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen — the entire army of Pharaoh that had chased the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.
Leviticus 26:36 As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them.
- חָיָה châyâhlivetranslated this way 4 times of its 265 uses · Strong’s H2421Verb · Translated: live 96, lived 24, was 17, revive 14Full study and all 254 verses →
Deuteronomy 5:26 For who of all flesh has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the fire, as we have, and survived?
2 Samuel 1:10 So I stood over him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive. And I took the crown that was on his head and the band that was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord.”
- שָׂרִיד sârîdsurvivortranslated this way 4 times of its 27 uses · Strong’s H8300Noun · Translated: survivors 13, survivor 5, remaining 2, survived 2Full study and all 27 verses →
Jeremiah 31:2 This is what the LORD says: “The people who survived the sword found favor in the wilderness when Israel went to find rest.”
Lamentations 2:22 You summoned my terrors on every side, as for the day of an appointed feast. In the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped or survived; my enemy has destroyed those I nurtured and reared.
- יָתַר yâtharremain overtranslated this way 2 times of its 106 uses · Strong’s H3498Verb · Translated: left 24, rest 12, remaining 11, remainder 8Full study and all 100 verses →
Deuteronomy 28:54 The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived,
Judges 9:5 He went to his father’s house in Ophrah, and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerubbaal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerubbaal, survived, because he hid himself.
- קוּם qûmarise, stand up, standtranslated this way 2 times of its 594 uses · Strong’s H6965Verb · Translated: rise 68, got 61, set 44, Get 42Full study and all 570 verses →
- מָצָא mâtsâattain to, findtranslated this way 2 times of its 436 uses · Strong’s H4672Verb · Translated: found 197, find 87, finds 13, present 7Full study and all 411 verses →
2 Kings 19:4 Perhaps the LORD your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”
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.