Word study

Wheat

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • חִטָּה chiṭṭâhwheattranslated this way 30 times of its 30 uses · Strong’s H2406Noun  ·  Translated: wheat 28, fine wheat 1, well as wheat 1

    Genesis 30:14 Now during the wheat harvest, Reuben went out and found some mandrakes in the field. When he brought them to his mother, Rachel begged Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”

    Exodus 9:32 but the wheat and spelt were not destroyed, because they are late crops.)

    Full study and all 30 verses →
  • חִנְטָא chinṭâwheattranslated this way 2 times of its 2 uses · Strong’s H2591Noun  ·  Translated: well as wheat 1, wheat 1

    Ezra 6:9 Whatever is needed— young bulls, rams, and lambs for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, as well as wheat, salt, wine, and oil, as requested by the priests in Jerusalem— must be given to them daily without fail.

    Ezra 7:22 up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cors of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of olive oil, and salt without limit.

    Full study and all 2 verses →
  • בָּר bârcorntranslated this way 2 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H1250Noun  ·  Translated: grain 11, wheat 2, open field 1

    Amos 8:5 asking, “When will the New Moon be over, that we may sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, that we may market wheat? Let us reduce the ephah and increase the shekel; let us cheat with dishonest scales.

    Amos 8:6 Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”

    Full study and all 14 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • σῖτος sîtoswheat, graintranslated this way 11 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s G4621Noun  ·  Translated: wheat 11, grain 4

    Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

    Luke 3:17 His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

    Full study and all 15 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.

What the Bible says about wheat: 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.