Word study

Thirst

2 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: thirst, thirsts, thirsted. 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 “thirst” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • צָמָא tsâmâthirsttranslated this way 15 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s H6772Noun  ·  Translated: thirst 15, parched ground 1, thirsty 1

    Exodus 17:3 But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt — to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

    Deuteronomy 28:48 you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

    Full study and all 17 verses →
  • צָמֵא tsâmêbe thirstytranslated this way 5 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H6770Verb  ·  Translated: thirsty 3, go thirsty 2, thirsts 2, thirst 2

    Exodus 17:3 But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt — to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

    Psalm 42:2 My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When shall I come and appear in God’s presence?

    Full study and all 10 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • διψάω dipsáōI thirst for, desire earnestlytranslated this way 4 times of its 16 uses · Strong’s G1372Verb  ·  Translated: thirsty 11, thirst 2, never thirst 2, get thirsty 1

    Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

    John 4:14 But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”

    Full study and all 16 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.

What the Bible says about thirst: passages by topic →

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.