Word study
Tall
5 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “tall”. 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 “tall” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- רוּם rûmbe high, exalted, risetranslated this way 6 times of its 185 uses · Strong’s H7311Verb · Translated: exalted 23, exalt 18, lift 14, raised 10Full study and all 180 verses →
Deuteronomy 2:10 (The Emites used to live there, a people great and many, as tall as the Anakites.
Isaiah 2:14 against all the tall mountains, against all the high hills,
- קוֹמָה qômâhheighttranslated this way 2 times of its 42 uses · Strong’s H6967Noun · Translated: high 27, height 7, tallest 2, tall 2Full study and all 41 verses →
2 Kings 25:17 Each pillar was eighteen cubits tall. The bronze capital atop one pillar was three cubits high, with a network of bronze pomegranates all around. The second pillar, with its network, was similar.
Jeremiah 52:21 Each pillar was eighteen cubits tall and twelve cubits in circumference; each was hollow, four fingers thick.
- מָשַׁךְ mâshakdraw, dragtranslated this way 2 times of its 34 uses · Strong’s H4900Verb · Translated: draw 3, drew 2, tall 2, Extend 2Full study and all 34 verses →
Isaiah 18:2 which sends couriers by sea, in papyrus vessels on the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people widely feared, to a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers.
Isaiah 18:7 At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts— from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people widely feared, from a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers— to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts.
- גָּבֹהַּ gâbôahhhigh, exaltedtranslated this way 1 time of its 40 uses · Strong’s H1364Adjective · Translated: high 20, proud 3, haughty 2, longer 2Full study and all 36 verses →
Ezekiel 17:24 Then all the trees of the field will know that I am the LORD. I bring the tall tree down and make the low tree tall. I dry up the green tree and make the withered tree flourish. I, the LORD, have spoken, and I have done it.’”
- גָּבַהּ gâbahhbe high, exaltedtranslated this way 1 time of its 34 uses · Strong’s H1361Verb · Translated: proud 4, high 4, soar 2, haughty 2Full study and all 33 verses →
Ezekiel 17:24 Then all the trees of the field will know that I am the LORD. I bring the tall tree down and make the low tree tall. I dry up the green tree and make the withered tree flourish. I, the LORD, have spoken, and I have done it.’”
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.