Word study

Throat

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • גָּרוֹן gârônneck, throattranslated this way 3 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H1627Noun  ·  Translated: throats 2, throat 1, mouths 1, heads 1

    Psalm 5:9 For not a word they speak can be trusted; destruction lies within them. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.

    Psalm 69:3 I am weary from my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • נֶפֶשׁ nepheshsoul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion, and passiontranslated this way 2 times of its 666 uses · Strong’s H5315Noun  ·  Translated: soul 178, life 119, lives 30, person 22

    Isaiah 5:14 Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat and opens wide its enormous jaws, and down go Zion’s nobles and masses, her revelers and carousers!

    Jeremiah 4:10 Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD, how completely You have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, ‘You will have peace,’ while a sword is at our throats.”

    Full study and all 622 verses →
  • לֹעַ lôathroattranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H3930Noun  ·  Translated: throat 1

    Proverbs 23:2 and put a knife to your throat if you possess a great appetite.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • גֹּרֶן gôrenthreshing-floortranslated this way 1 time of its 36 uses · Strong’s H1637Noun  ·  Translated: threshing floor 32, threshing floors 2, throat 1, like a threshing floor 1

    Jeremiah 2:25 You should have kept your feet from going bare and your throat from being thirsty. But you said, ‘It is hopeless! For I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.’

    Full study and all 36 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

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.