Word study

Sustain

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: sustain, sustained, sustains. 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 “sustain” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • סָמַךְ sâmaklean, lay, rest, supporttranslated this way 6 times of its 48 uses · Strong’s H5564Verb  ·  Translated: lay 17, laid 6, Sustain 3, sustained 2

    Genesis 27:37 But Isaac answered Esau: “Look, I have made him your master and given him all his relatives as servants; I have sustained him with grain and new wine. What is left that I can do for you, my son?”

    Psalm 3:5 I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the LORD sustains me.

    Full study and all 47 verses →
  • כּוּל kûlcomprehend, containtranslated this way 4 times of its 38 uses · Strong’s H3557Verb  ·  Translated: provide 4, provided 4, hold 4, contain 4

    Ruth 4:15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”

    Nehemiah 9:21 For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

    Full study and all 37 verses →
  • סָעַד sâadsupport, sustain, staytranslated this way 4 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s H5582Verb  ·  Translated: refresh 4, sustain 3

    Psalm 20:2 May He send you help from the sanctuary and sustain you from Zion.

    Isaiah 9:7 Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.

    Full study and all 12 verses →
  • עוּד ûdreturn, go about, repeat, do againtranslated this way 2 times of its 39 uses · Strong’s H5749Verb  ·  Translated: warned 5, testify 5, warn 3, admonished 3

    Psalm 146:9 The LORD protects foreigners; He sustains the fatherless and the widow, but the ways of the wicked He frustrates.

    Psalm 147:6 The LORD sustains the humble, but casts the wicked to the ground.

    Full study and all 39 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.