Word study

Visible

2 Hebrew and 3 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “visible”. 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 “visible” 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)

  • רָאָה rââhseetranslated this way 3 times of its 1,266 uses · Strong’s H7200Verb  ·  Translated: see 354, saw 285, seen 124, look 45

    Genesis 8:5 And the waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

    Full study and all 1,181 verses →
  • חֲזוֹת chăzôthsight, visibilitytranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2379Noun  ·  Translated: visible 2

    Daniel 4:11 The tree grew large and strong; its top reached the sky, and it was visible to the ends of the earth.

    Daniel 4:20 The tree you saw that grew large and strong, whose top reached the sky and was visible to all the earth,

    Full study and all 2 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • φανερόω phaneróōI make clear, visible, or manifesttranslated this way 1 time of its 49 uses · Strong’s G5319Verb  ·  Translated: revealed 17, appeared 6, appears 4, made 3

    Ephesians 5:13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that is illuminated becomes a light itself.

    Full study and all 43 verses →
  • ὁρατός horatósvisibletranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s G3707Adjective  ·  Translated: visible 1

    Colossians 1:16 For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.

    Full study and its 1 verse →
  • φαίνω phaínōI shine, appear, seemtranslated this way 1 time of its 31 uses · Strong’s G5316Verb  ·  Translated: appeared 7, appear 3, shining 3, seen 2

    Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

    Full study and all 31 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.