Word study
Thicket
9 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: thickets, thicket. 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 “thicket” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- סְבָךְ sebâkthickettranslated this way 4 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H5442Noun · Translated: thicket 2, thickets 2Full study and all 4 verses →
Genesis 22:13 Then Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram in a thicket, caught by its horns. So he went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.
Psalm 74:5 like men wielding axes in a thicket of trees
- גָּאוֹן gâônexaltationtranslated this way 4 times of its 49 uses · Strong’s H1347Noun · Translated: pride 21, majesty 6, proud 4, thickets 4Full study and all 45 verses →
Jeremiah 12:5 “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?
Zechariah 11:3 Listen to the wailing of the shepherds, for their glory is in ruins. Listen to the roaring of the young lions, for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed.
- יַעַר yaarwood, forest, thickettranslated this way 2 times of its 59 uses · Strong’s H3293Noun · Translated: forest 41, forests 5, like a forest 2, wooded 2Full study and all 59 verses →
Isaiah 21:13 This is the burden against Arabia: In the thickets of Arabia you must lodge, O caravans of Dedanites.
Hosea 2:12 I will destroy her vines and fig trees, which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers. So I will make them into a thicket, and the beasts of the field will devour them.
- סֻכָּה sukkâhthicket, boothtranslated this way 1 time of its 31 uses · Strong’s H5521Noun · Translated: Tabernacles 9, booths 7, tents 3, shelter 3Full study and all 29 verses →
Job 38:40 when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in the thicket?
- סֹךְ sôkthicket, covert, lairtranslated this way 1 time of its 4 uses · Strong’s H5520Noun · Translated: thicket 1, shelter 1, tent 1, den 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Psalm 10:9 He lies in wait like a lion in a thicket; he lurks to seize the oppressed; he catches the lowly in his net.
- סֹבֶךְ sôbekid.translated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H5441Noun · Translated: thicket 1Full study and its 1 verse →
Jeremiah 4:7 A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.
- חוֹחַ chôachbrier, brambletranslated this way 1 time of its 12 uses · Strong’s H2336Noun · Translated: thistle 4, briers 2, thorns 2Full study and all 10 verses →
1 Samuel 13:6 Seeing that they were in danger because their troops were hard-pressed, the men of Israel hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in cellars and cisterns.
- חֹרֶשׁ chôreshwood, wooded heighttranslated this way 1 time of its 7 uses · Strong’s H2793Noun · Translated: Horesh 4, forests 1, thickets 1, forest 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Isaiah 17:9 In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken thickets and summits, abandoned to the Israelites and to utter desolation.
- עָב âbdark cloud, cloud-mass, thickettranslated this way 1 time of its 30 uses · Strong’s H5645Noun · Translated: clouds 18, cloud 3, like a cloud 3, thick clouds 2Full study and all 30 verses →
Jeremiah 4:29 Every city flees at the sound of the horseman and archer. They enter the thickets and climb among the rocks. Every city is abandoned; no inhabitant is left.
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.