Word study

Tend

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: tend, tending, tends, tended. 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 “tend” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רָעָה rââhpasture, tend, grazetranslated this way 9 times of its 170 uses · Strong’s H7462Verb  ·  Translated: shepherd 42, shepherds 39, feed 18, graze 8

    Genesis 37:2 This is the account of Jacob. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flock with his brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

    1 Samuel 16:11 And Samuel asked him, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied, “but he is tending the sheep.” “Send for him,” Samuel replied. “For we will not sit down to eat until he arrives.”

    Full study and all 146 verses →
  • עָרַךְ ârakarrange or set in ordertranslated this way 3 times of its 75 uses · Strong’s H6186Verb  ·  Translated: arrayed 14, prepared 5, compare 5, set 4

    Exodus 27:21 In the Tent of Meeting, outside the veil that is in front of the Testimony, Aaron and his sons are to tend the lamps before the LORD from evening until morning. This is to be a permanent statute for the Israelites for the generations to come.’’

    Leviticus 24:3 Outside the veil of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps continually before the LORD from evening until morning. This is to be a permanent statute for the generations to come.

    Full study and all 71 verses →
  • כֹּרֵם kôrêmtend vineyards, dress vinestranslated this way 2 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H3755Verb  ·  Translated: vinedressers 3, tend the vineyards 2

    2 Kings 25:12 But the captain of the guard left behind some of the poorest of the land to tend the vineyards and fields.

    Jeremiah 52:16 But Nebuzaradan captain of the guard left behind some of the poorest of the land to tend the vineyards and fields.

    Full study and all 5 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • βόσκω bóskōI feedtranslated this way 3 times of its 9 uses · Strong’s G1006Verb  ·  Translated: feeding 3, tending 3, Feed 3

    Matthew 8:33 Those tending the pigs ran off into the town and reported all this, including the account of the demon-possessed men.

    Mark 5:14 Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened.

    Full study and all 9 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.