Word study
Weigh
7 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: weighing, weighed, weigh, weighs. 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 “weigh” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- מִשְׁקָל mishqâlid.translated this way 22 times of its 46 uses · Strong’s H4948Noun · Translated: weight 20, weighing 16, weighed 5Full study and all 40 verses →
Genesis 24:22 And after the camels had finished drinking, he took out a gold ring weighing a beka, and two gold bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels.
Numbers 7:13 His offering was one silver platter weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel and filled with fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;
- שָׁקַל shâqalweightranslated this way 17 times of its 21 uses · Strong’s H8254Verb · Translated: weighed 11, weigh 4, pay 2Full study and all 21 verses →
Genesis 23:16 Abraham agreed to Ephron’s terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver, according to the standard of the merchants.
2 Samuel 14:26 And when he cut the hair of his head— he shaved it every year because his hair got so heavy— he would weigh it out to be two hundred shekels, according to the royal standard.
- שִׁבְעִים shibîmseventytranslated this way 12 times of its 66 uses · Strong’s H7657Number · Translated: seventy 42, weighing seventy 12, 70 4, 70 000 3Full study and all 65 verses →
Numbers 7:13 His offering was one silver platter weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel and filled with fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;
Numbers 7:19 The offering he presented was one silver platter weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel and filled with fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;
- עֶשֶׂר esertentranslated this way 12 times of its 168 uses · Strong’s H6235Number · Translated: ten 127, 10 000 15, weighing ten 12, tens 3Full study and all 149 verses →
Numbers 7:14 one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;
Numbers 7:20 one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense;
- תָּכַן tâkanregulate, measure, estimatetranslated this way 4 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s H8505Verb · Translated: just 5, weighed 2, weighs 2Full study and all 12 verses →
1 Samuel 2:3 Do not boast so proudly, or let arrogance come from your mouth, for the LORD is a God who knows, and by Him actions are weighed.
Proverbs 16:2 All a man’s ways are pure in his own eyes, but his motives are weighed out by the LORD.
- כָּבַד kâbadbe heavy, weighty, burdensome, honouredtranslated this way 2 times of its 109 uses · Strong’s H3513Verb · Translated: honor 19, honored 11, heavy 10, hardened 6Full study and all 105 verses →
Isaiah 24:20 The earth staggers like a drunkard and sways like a shack. Earth’s rebellion weighs it down, and it falls, never to rise again.
Lamentations 3:7 He has walled me in so I cannot escape; He has weighed me down with chains.
- רַב rabmuch, many, greattranslated this way 2 times of its 445 uses · Strong’s H7227Adjective · Translated: many 171, great 65, captain 24, long 14Full study and all 426 verses →
Ecclesiastes 6:1 There is another evil I have seen under the sun, and it weighs heavily upon mankind:
Ecclesiastes 8:6 For there is a right time and procedure to every purpose, though a man’s misery weighs heavily upon him.
How to study a word well
- 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.
- 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.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- 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.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- 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.