Word study
Territory
8 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: territory, territories. 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 “territory” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- גְּבוּל gebûlborder, boundary, territorytranslated this way 57 times of its 209 uses · Strong’s H1366Noun · Translated: border 76, territory 55, borders 15, boundary 9Full study and all 185 verses →
Exodus 10:4 But if you refuse to let My people go, I will bring locusts into your territory tomorrow.
Numbers 20:16 and when we cried out to the LORD, He heard our voice, sent an angel, and brought us out of Egypt. Now look, we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory.
- אֶרֶץ eretsearth, landtranslated this way 4 times of its 2,375 uses · Strong’s H776Noun · Translated: land 1,483, earth 564, ground 119, lands 41Full study and all 2,120 verses →
Genesis 10:5 From these, the maritime peoples separated into their territories, according to their languages, by clans within their nations.
- שָׂדֶה sâdehid.translated this way 3 times of its 317 uses · Strong’s H7704Noun · Translated: field 185, fields 55, land 19, wild 13Full study and all 299 verses →
Genesis 14:7 Then they turned back to invade En-mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and they conquered the whole territory of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites who lived in Hazazon-tamar.
1 Samuel 27:7 And the time that David lived in Philistine territory amounted to a year and four months.
- נַחֲלָה nachălâhpossession, property, inheritancetranslated this way 3 times of its 216 uses · Strong’s H5159Noun · Translated: inheritance 191, heritage 13, territory 2, inheritances 2Full study and all 190 verses →
Genesis 48:6 Any children born to you after them shall be yours, and they shall be called by the names of their brothers in the territory they inherit.
Joshua 19:1 The second lot came out for the clans of the tribe of Simeon: Their inheritance lay within the territory of Judah
- גְּבוּלָה gebûlâhborder, boundarytranslated this way 2 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H1367Noun · Translated: boundaries 4Full study and all 10 verses →
Numbers 32:33 So Moses gave to the Gadites, to the Reubenites, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan — the land including its cities and the territory surrounding them.
Joshua 19:49 When they had finished distributing the land into its territories, the Israelites gave Joshua son of Nun an inheritance among them,
- אֲחֻזָּה ăchuzzâhpossessiontranslated this way 2 times of its 60 uses · Strong’s H272Noun · Translated: property 26, possession 16, site 5, possess 4Full study and all 54 verses →
Numbers 35:8 The cities that you apportion from the territory of the Israelites should be given to the Levites in proportion to the inheritance of each tribe: more from a larger tribe and less from a smaller one.”
Joshua 21:41 For the Levites, then, there were forty-eight cities in all, together with their pasturelands, within the territory of the Israelites.
- גּוֹרָל gôrâllottranslated this way 2 times of its 74 uses · Strong’s H1486Noun · Translated: lot 35, lots 17, allotted 6, allotment 4Full study and all 66 verses →
Judges 1:3 Then the men of Judah said to their brothers the Simeonites, “Come up with us to our allotted territory, and let us fight against the Canaanites. And we likewise will go with you to your territory.” So the Simeonites went with them.
- בּוֹא bôcome in, come, go in, gotranslated this way 2 times of its 2,442 uses · Strong’s H935Verb · Translated: come 358, came 298, bring 209, brought 201Full study and all 2,217 verses →
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.