Word study

Tolerate

3 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • נָבַט nâbaṭlooktranslated this way 3 times of its 68 uses · Strong’s H5027Verb  ·  Translated: look 24, looked 8, see 7, consider 6

    Habakkuk 1:3 Why do You make me see iniquity? Why do You tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict abounds.

    Habakkuk 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do You tolerate the faithless? Why are You silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

    Full study and all 66 verses →
  • עָמַד âmadtake one's stand, standtranslated this way 1 time of its 508 uses · Strong’s H5975Verb  ·  Translated: stood 99, stand 95, standing 50, stands 12Full study and all 485 verses →
  • נוּחַ nûachresttranslated this way 1 time of its 140 uses · Strong’s H5117Verb  ·  Translated: rest 20, leave 10, placed 9, set 7

    Esther 3:8 Then Haman informed King Xerxes, “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples of every province of your kingdom. Their laws are different from everyone else’s, and they do not obey the king’s laws. So it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them.

    Full study and all 139 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀνέχομαι anéchomaiI endure, bear withtranslated this way 1 time of its 14 uses · Strong’s G430Verb  ·  Translated: put 5, Bear 2

    2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires.

    Full study and all 14 verses →
  • βαστάζω bastázōI carry, carry away, beartranslated this way 1 time of its 27 uses · Strong’s G941Verb  ·  Translated: carry 6, bear 5, carried 4, carrying 4

    Revelation 2:2 I know your deeds, your labor, and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate those who are evil, and you have tested and exposed as liars those who falsely claim to be apostles.

    Full study and all 27 verses →
  • ἀφίημι aphíēmiI send away, release, remit, forgive, permittranslated this way 1 time of its 142 uses · Strong’s G863Verb  ·  Translated: left 36, forgive 22, forgiven 22, let 12

    Revelation 2:20 But I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads My servants to be sexually immoral and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

    Full study and all 130 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.