Word study

Unfaithfulness

5 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “unfaithfulness”. 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 “unfaithfulness” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מַעַל maalunfaithful, treacherous acttranslated this way 10 times of its 22 uses · Strong’s H4604Noun  ·  Translated: unfaithfulness 10, unfaithfully 5, committed 3, breach of faith 2

    Leviticus 26:40 But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me—

    1 Chronicles 9:1 So all Israel was recorded in the genealogies written in the Book of the Kings of Israel. But Judah was exiled to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness.

    Full study and all 22 verses →
  • זְנוּת zenûthfornicationtranslated this way 1 time of its 9 uses · Strong’s H2184Noun  ·  Translated: prostitution 5, unfaithfulness 1, her 1, promiscuity 1

    Numbers 14:33 Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.

    Full study and all 9 verses →
  • אֵמוּן êmûntrusting, faithfulnesstranslated this way 1 time of its 8 uses · Strong’s H529Noun  ·  Translated: faithful 5, unfaithfulness 1, honest 1, trustworthy 1

    Deuteronomy 32:20 He said: “I will hide My face from them; I will see what will be their end. For they are a perverse generation— children of unfaithfulness.

    Full study and all 8 verses →
  • מָעַל mâalact unfaithfully, treacherouslytranslated this way 1 time of its 33 uses · Strong’s H4603Verb  ·  Translated: unfaithful 13, acts 3, acted unfaithfully 2, acting unfaithfully 2

    Ezekiel 18:24 But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, committing the same abominations as the wicked, will he live? None of the righteous acts he did will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness and sin he has committed, he will die.

    Full study and all 33 verses →
  • נַאֲפוּף naăphûphadulterytranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H5005Noun  ·  Translated: unfaithfulness 1

    Hosea 2:2 Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not My wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adultery from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
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 unfaithfulness: 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.