Word study

Swoop

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: swoop, swooping, swooped, swoops. 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 “swoop” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • דָּאָה dââhfly swiftly, dart through the airtranslated this way 3 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H1675Verb  ·  Translated: swoop 2, soared 1, swoops 1

    Deuteronomy 28:49 The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle — a nation whose language you will not understand,

    Jeremiah 48:40 For this is what the LORD says: “Behold, an eagle swoops down and spreads his wings against Moab.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • עוּף ûphflytranslated this way 1 time of its 26 uses · Strong’s H5774Verb  ·  Translated: flying 5, fly 4, fly away 4, flies 3

    Isaiah 11:14 They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines to the west; together they will plunder the sons of the east. They will lay their hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them.

    Full study and all 25 verses →
  • נָפַל nâphalfall, lietranslated this way 1 time of its 432 uses · Strong’s H5307Verb  ·  Translated: fall 104, fell 77, fallen 54, falls 21

    Job 1:15 the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They put the servants to the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

    Full study and all 403 verses →
  • טוּשׂ ṭûsrush, darttranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H2907Verb  ·  Translated: swooping 1

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

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • חוּשׁ chûshhaste, make hastetranslated this way 1 time of its 18 uses · Strong’s H2363Verb  ·  Translated: hurry 4, come quickly 3

    Habakkuk 1:8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead, and their cavalry comes from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to devour.

    Full study and all 18 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.