Word study

Thresh

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: threshing, thresh, threshed. 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 “thresh” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • גֹּרֶן gôrenthreshing-floortranslated this way 35 times of its 36 uses · Strong’s H1637Noun  ·  Translated: threshing floor 32, threshing floors 2, throat 1, like a threshing floor 1

    Genesis 50:10 When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, which is across the Jordan, they lamented and wailed loudly, and Joseph mourned for his father seven days.

    Numbers 15:20 From the first of your dough, you are to lift up a cake as a contribution; offer it just like an offering from the threshing floor.

    Full study and all 36 verses →
  • דּוּשׁ dûshtread, threshtranslated this way 9 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s H1758Verb  ·  Translated: threshed 3, thresh 3, threshing 2

    2 Kings 13:7 Jehoahaz had no army left, except fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers, because the king of Aram had destroyed them and made them like the dust at threshing.

    1 Chronicles 21:20 Now Ornan was threshing wheat when he turned and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves.

    Full study and all 14 verses →
  • מוֹרַג môragthreshing-sledgetranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H4173Noun  ·  Translated: threshing sledges 2, threshing sledge 1

    2 Samuel 24:22 Araunah said to David, “May my lord the king take whatever seems good to him and offer it up. Here are the oxen for a burnt offering and the threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood.

    1 Chronicles 21:23 Ornan said to David, “Take it! May my lord the king do whatever seems good to him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering— I will give it all.”

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • חָבַט châbaṭbeat off, beat outtranslated this way 2 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H2251Verb  ·  Translated: beat 2, threshing 1, thresh 1, beaten 1

    Judges 6:11 Then the angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

    Isaiah 27:12 In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one.

    Full study and all 5 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἅλων hálōna threshing-floortranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s G257Noun  ·  Translated: threshing floor 2

    Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

    Luke 3:17 His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

    Full study and all 2 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.