Word study

Sweep

6 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: sweep, sweeps, sweeping. 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 “sweep” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עָבַר âbarpass over, through, by, pass ontranslated this way 5 times of its 542 uses · Strong’s H5674Verb  ·  Translated: pass 62, crossed 57, cross 52, passed 35Full study and all 487 verses →
  • חָלַף châlaphpass on or away, pass throughtranslated this way 3 times of its 27 uses · Strong’s H2498Verb  ·  Translated: changed 4, change 2, replace 2, sweep 2

    Job 9:26 They sweep by like boats of papyrus, like an eagle swooping down on its prey.

    Isaiah 21:1 This is the burden against the Desert by the Sea: Like whirlwinds sweeping through the Negev, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror.

    Full study and all 26 verses →
  • סָפָה sâphâhsweep away or snatch away, catch uptranslated this way 2 times of its 18 uses · Strong’s H5595Verb  ·  Translated: swept away 8

    Genesis 18:23 Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will You really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

    Genesis 18:24 What if there are fifty righteous ones in the city? Will You really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous ones who are there?

    Full study and all 18 verses →
  • אָסַף âsaphgather, removetranslated this way 2 times of its 193 uses · Strong’s H622Verb  ·  Translated: gathered 56, gather 27, assembled 13, assemble 8

    1 Samuel 15:6 And he warned the Kenites, “Since you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt, go on and get away from the Amalekites. Otherwise I will sweep you away with them.” So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.

    Zephaniah 1:2 “I will completely sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” declares the LORD.

    Full study and all 183 verses →
  • שָׂעַר sâarbristletranslated this way 2 times of its 8 uses · Strong’s H8175Verb  ·  Translated: fear 1, sweeps 1, tempest 1, sweep them away 1

    Job 27:21 The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.

    Psalm 58:9 Before your pots can feel the burning thorns— whether green or dry— He will sweep them away.

    Full study and all 8 verses →
  • סוּף sûphcome to an end, ceasetranslated this way 2 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H5486Verb  ·  Translated: sweep away 2, fade 1, swept away 1, perish 1

    Zephaniah 1:3 “I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, and the idols with their wicked worshipers. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth,” declares the LORD.

    Full study and all 4 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.