Word study

Theirs

6 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “theirs”. 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 “theirs” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • כְּמוֹ kemôlike, as, whentranslated this way 1 time of its 127 uses · Strong’s H3644Preposition  ·  Translated: like 77, as 11, as you 4, equal 3

    Numbers 23:10 Who can count the dust of Jacob or number even a fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous; let my end be like theirs!”

    Full study and all 119 verses →
  • לֵב lêbinner man, mind, will, hearttranslated this way 1 time of its 526 uses · Strong’s H3820Noun  ·  Translated: heart 326, hearts 78, mind 30, judgment 11

    1 Samuel 6:6 Why harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened theirs? When He afflicted them, did they not send the people out so they could go on their way?

    Full study and all 495 verses →
  • דָּבָר dâbârspeech, wordtranslated this way 1 time of its 1,244 uses · Strong’s H1697Noun  ·  Translated: word 342, words 299, acts 51, Chronicles 42Full study and all 1,120 verses →
  • נֶפֶשׁ nepheshsoul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion, and passiontranslated this way 1 time of its 666 uses · Strong’s H5315Noun  ·  Translated: soul 178, life 119, lives 30, person 22

    2 Kings 10:24 And they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had stationed eighty men outside and warned them, “If anyone allows one of the men I am delivering into your hands to escape, he will forfeit his life for theirs.”

    Full study and all 622 verses →
  • אַשְׁמָה ashmâhwrong-doing, guiltinesstranslated this way 1 time of its 19 uses · Strong’s H819Noun  ·  Translated: guilt 13

    2 Chronicles 24:18 They abandoned the house of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherah poles and idols. So wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.

    Full study and all 17 verses →
  • הָיָה hâyâhfall out, come to pass, become, betranslated this way 1 time of its 2,848 uses · Strong’s H1961Verb  ·  Translated: will be 206, become 178, came 169, was 151Full study and all 2,573 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • αὐτός autóshe, she, it, they, them, sametranslated this way 3 times of its 4,051 uses · Strong’s G846Personal / Possessive Pronoun  ·  Translated: him 1,014, his 849, them 557, their 272

    Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

    Matthew 5:10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

    Full study and all 2,999 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.