Word study
Survivor
6 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: survivors, survivor. 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 “survivor” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- שָׂרִיד sârîdsurvivortranslated this way 18 times of its 27 uses · Strong’s H8300Noun · Translated: survivors 13, survivor 5, remaining 2, survived 2Full study and all 27 verses →
Numbers 24:19 A ruler will come from Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city.”
Deuteronomy 2:34 At that time we captured all his cities and devoted to destruction the people of every city, including women and children. We left no survivors.
- פְּלֵיטָה pelêṭâhescapetranslated this way 7 times of its 28 uses · Strong’s H6413Noun · Translated: escape 6, survivors 6, remnant 6, deliverance 4Full study and all 28 verses →
Judges 21:17 They added, “There must be heirs for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out.
2 Kings 19:31 For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.
- שָׁאַר shâarremain, be left overtranslated this way 4 times of its 126 uses · Strong’s H7604Verb · Translated: left 24, remained 19, remain 15, survive 8Full study and all 118 verses →
Genesis 14:10 Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits, and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some men fell into the pits, but the survivors fled to the hill country.
Deuteronomy 7:20 Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet against them until even the survivors hiding from you have perished.
- פָּלִיט pâlîṭescaped one, fugitivetranslated this way 3 times of its 24 uses · Strong’s H6412Noun · Translated: fugitive 5, escape 5, fugitives 4, survivors 3Full study and all 23 verses →
Isaiah 66:19 I will establish a sign among them, and I will send survivors from among them to the nations — to Tarshish, Put, and the archers of Lud; to Tubal, Javan, and the islands far away who have not heard of My fame or seen My glory. So they will proclaim My glory among the nations.
Ezekiel 6:9 Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me — how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- 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 →
Judges 21:7 What should we do about wives for the survivors, since we have sworn by the LORD not to give them our daughters in marriage?”
Zechariah 14:16 Then all the survivors from the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of Hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.
- שְׁאֵרִית sheêrîthrest, residue, remnant, remaindertranslated this way 2 times of its 66 uses · Strong’s H7611Noun · Translated: remnant 54, rest 8, survivors 2, posterity 1Full study and all 66 verses →
Psalm 76:10 Even the wrath of man shall praise You; with the survivors of wrath You will clothe Yourself.
Jeremiah 50:26 Come against her from the farthest border. Break open her granaries; pile her up like mounds of grain. Devote her to destruction; leave her no survivors.
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.